| Parents and guardians can take the following actions to help their children stay or become tobacco-free: |
| Be Smoke Free |
- Set a good example and be a positive role model by not using tobacco.
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- If you don't smoke, don't start! If you do smoke, quit!
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- If you smoke, share your struggles to quit with your children.
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- Maintain a smoke-free home and car.
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| Talk With Kids |
- Give clear, consistent messages about the dangers of tobacco.
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- Emphasize the immediate, health effects of smoking or using tobacco.
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- Emphasize the effects of smoking on physical appearance.
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- Tell your kids that you don't want them to smoke and will be disappointed with them, if they do.
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- Help children critically analyze messages that glamorize tobacco use on television, in movies and in magazines.
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- Destroy the myth that everybody smokes.
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- Share tobacco-use prevention information with children and talk with them about anything and everything.
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- Teach children to manage emotions.
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- Teach children to be social without tobacco.
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| Talk With Teachers |
- Work with the school board to provide youth tobacco cessation programs, rather than punishment, for students who violate tobacco-use policies.
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| Other Helpful Links |
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| Sources: Tobacco-Free Kids, 2009, Schwebel, R., How to Help Your Kids Choose To Be Tobacco-Free, 1999, Distefan, J.M., Gilpin, E.A., Choi, W.S. & Pierce, J.P., 1998. |
