Smoking and vaping - how to discourage your children

The average age that young people in Australia start smoking is around 16 years. Experts are concerned that young people are experimenting with vaping at an even earlier age. When people smoke a cigarette, they inhale chemicals and fine particles, and this causes or contributes to a wide range of diseases including cancers, heart disease and emphysema. When people vape an e-cigarette, they inhale chemicals, heavy metals and fine particles, which poses risks to lung health and poisoning. Explosions and fires from e-cigarette devices are also a risk. People who smoke frequently become addicted to nicotine, and e-cigarettes that contain nicotine are also addictive. Children who vape nicotine are much more likely to start smoking.

The best protection against addiction, illnesses and injuries is never to vape or smoke in the first place. However, children entering their teenage years are experimental, curious and vulnerable to peer pressure and online promotions. Whether your child chooses to vape or smoke regularly or not is influenced by a range of factors. It is not always possible for parents to prevent their child from trying e-cigarettes or cigarettes, but the use of various strategies can reduce the likelihood of a child wanting to vape or smoke and doing so regularly.

What is vaping?

An e-cigarette is a battery-powered device that heats a liquid into an aerosol which is inhaled into the lungs. This aerosol contains many different chemicals. At least 20 of the chemicals found in e-cigarette aerosols have been shown to cause damage to the lungs or other organs. The aerosol might or might not contain nicotine.

E-cigarettes come in many shapes and colours: they can look like cigarettes or cigars or other everyday items such as pens, memory sticks or highlighters. E-cigarettes may also be called vapes, JUULs, hookah-pens, or other names.

In Australia, you can only legally buy vaping products with a doctor’s prescription. However, testing shows that most e-cigarettes bought from shops or online in Australia contain nicotine and this is commonly not stated on the label.

Links to more information on vaping:

• Quit Victoria’s video: E-cigarettes and young people: what you need to know
• Quit resources for parents and teachers about teen vaping
• Australia National University’s e-cigarette infographic.

What is the link between vaping and smoking?

There is a strong link between smoking and vaping for children because:

• Tobacco and many e-cigarettes contain nicotine, an addictive substance.
• In young people, vaping tends to lead to or reinforce smoking.
• Non-smoking children who vape nicotine are three times more likely than non-users to start smoking.
• Both smoking and vaping (whether the e-cigarette contains nicotine or not) are harmful to health.

Why some children vape or smoke

Some of the reasons why your child may try e-cigarettes or cigarettes include:

• peer bonding and the desire to fit in with friends
• copying parents or older brothers or sisters who smoke
• the wish to assert their growing independence
• the desire to appear more grown up and sophisticated
• curiosity
• flavours (e-cigarettes)
• to imitate actors, models or influencers in movies, video games or social media.

While older forms of cigarette and e-cigarette advertising have been banned, children are increasingly exposed to cigarette and e-cigarette advertising and branding through the internet and social media, including Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, among others.

E-cigarettes have a wide range of sweet flavours that appeal to children. Child-friendly packaging that have cartoons or look like juice boxes, lollies or biscuits are common. Some products make it easier for children to hide their vaping from their parents and teachers, such as attachments that reduce the aerosol, or e-cigarettes concealed in clothing, toys and smart watches. Together, e-cigarette advertising and features give children the sense that they are fun, cool, lower risk and can be used to get around smokefree policies.

Some groups of children are more at risk of smoking than others. These groups include children:

• who start vaping
• who experience depression, anxiety or emotional distress,
• with mental health or behavioural problems, and
• who have certain temperaments including poor self-control, children who tend to rebel, or who are prone to sensation seeking and risk taking.

Be a good role model by not vaping or smoking

If you don’t want your child to vape or smoke, set a good example by not smoking yourself. Similarly, only vape if it has been prescribed to you by a doctor to help you stop smoking. Research shows that children are less likely to smoke if their parents stop smoking or have never smoked.

If you smoke or vape and have found quitting difficult, share your experiences with your child. For example, tell them how it feels to be hooked on doing something you don’t want to do, or how much money you wish you hadn’t wasted on cigarettes or e-cigarettes over the years. Let them see they can learn a valuable lesson from your experiences.

If you see vaping as a way of reducing your risk from smoking, try not to let this be the main message to your child. Vaping is harmful and has extra health risks for children.

Ask your children for their support during your next quit attempt. If your child can witness how tough quitting cigarettes or e-cigarettes can be, they may want to steer clear of addiction completely.

Take a stand against vaping and smoking

Other suggestions to reinforce the non-vaping and non-smoking message include:

• Don’t permit anyone to vape or smoke in your home.
• Discuss the issue of vaping and smoking with your child when you see other people vape or smoke.
• Don’t let your child light a cigarette for you or anyone else or try your or anybody else’s e-cigarette.
• Don’t let your children buy e-cigarettes or cigarettes for you or anyone else.
• If there are adults who smoke or vape in the house, make sure they keep their vaping products or cigarettes where your child cannot access them.

Educate your child about vaping and smoking

Symptoms of many smoking-related illnesses tend to develop in middle or later life. The long-term health effects of vaping products are unknown because they have only been widely used for about a decade.

Trying to explain the long-term risks of smoking to a child or teenager may not have much of an impact, as 20 or 30 years or more into the future is an unimaginable time to them. Mention these long-term risks but try to talk more about the risks to their health and wellbeing right now.

Some risks to teenagers include:

• reduced fitness levels (smoking or vaping)
• stained teeth and fingers, nasty smelling breath (smoking)
• dental problems (smoking or vaping)
• coughing, wheezing and for children who have asthma, worse symptoms (smoking or vaping)
• pre-diabetes (metabolic syndrome) (smoking)
• being unattractive to non-vaping/smoking peers (smoking or vaping)
• wasting money that could be used for clothes, music or other items (smoking or vaping)
• the difficulty of stopping use once symptoms of addiction to nicotine appear (smoking or vaping).

Many young people develop symptoms of addiction even if they don’t vape or smoke every day, and for some, symptoms can develop within days to weeks of starting to vape or smoke.

A person’s brain is still developing up to the age of about 25 years old. Smoking or vaping while their body and brain is still growing can have long-lasting effects. These include:

• poorer lung growth and weaker lungs (smoking)
• poorer bone growth leading to lower bone mass as adults (smoking)
• effects on brain development, which are related to poorer attention, learning, memory, concentration and control of emotions (smoking or vaping)

Less common but very serious risks of vaping include:

• Serious lung injury that can lead to hospital or death, including for teenagers and young adults. These cases are known as EVALI or e-cigarette or vaping associated lung injury and can happen to users of e-cigarettes containing nicotine or substances from cannabis.
• Burns and injuries from faulty e-cigarettes exploding.
• Nicotine poisoning can occur if a child or adult swallows or spills vaping liquid on their skin. They may need to go to hospital, and in severe cases they can die. Very young children are most at risk. If you suspect nicotine poisoning, call the Poisons Information Centre on Tel. 13 11 26.

Cigarettes and e-cigarettes harm the environment and contribute to climate change. E-cigarettes are both e-waste and a biohazard, meaning they contain single use plastics and lithium batteries, metals, nicotine and other chemicals that can leach into the environment and are poisonous to animals. There is not yet a system to dispose of e-cigarettes safely. A lot of forest is cleared to grow tobacco for both cigarettes and to produce nicotine for e-cigarettes. Cigarettes butts make their way into our coastal oceans where they stay for many years and leach nicotine (which is also a pesticide) into the environment.

What to do if your child already vapes or smokes

If your child is already vaping or smoking, or if you suspect they may be, try to avoid getting angry at them or making threats. Instead, stay calm and try having a conversation with them using a reasonable ‘adult-to-adult’ tone. Use open-ended questions.

Find out what they find appealing about the products. For example, it may be fitting in with their peers is important. Don’t try to force your child to stop seeing their friends who vape or smoke.

You could try saying you disapprove of vaping and smoking, but let your child try to fit in with their peers in other ways such as buying the same style of clothes as their friends. Or you could help your child to question the value of always following the crowd. It can be an opportunity to encourage your child to think and act independently. Teens with disposable income are more at risk of trying vaping out of curiosity. Having a conversation with them about their spending and saving habits and what other interests or hobbies they would like to spend their money on may help.

As teens experiencing stress, anxiety and depression are more at risk of smoking, encouraging a more holistic approach to health and wellbeing may also help. For example, having a good sleep routine, a healthy diet, doing exercise they enjoy, engaging in programs that support mental health such as mindfulness meditation, and other strategies that reduce anxiety and depression may help.

Read more about general issues facing teenagers and teenage health.

If your child wants to stop vaping or smoking, but is finding it hard, help is available. Quitline counsellors know how to talk about vaping or smoking with young people and support them to quit.

Children aged 12 to 17 years may use nicotine replacement therapy like the patch or lozenges to help them quit smoking, but it’s strongly recommended that they speak to their doctor or other trained health professional about it first.

Children and vaping or smoking

Vaping and smoking become more common as students progress through school. One in twenty school students (about 5 per cent) have tried smoking by age 12, and this rises to one in eight by age 14 (about 12 per cent). In 2017, similar percentages of children these ages had tried e-cigarettes.

By the time they are 17 years old, around 35 per cent of school students have tried smoking and 11 per cent are ‘current smokers’ (defined as having smoked in the week before the survey). In 2017, one in five 17 year old students had tried e-cigarettes and 11 per cent had used them on three or more days in the past month.

Where to get help

• Your GP (doctor)
• Quitline Tel. 137 848
• Victorian Poisons Information Centre Tel. 13 11 26 (for suspected nicotine poisoning)