Appropriate punishment for a 13-yr old who admits to smoking?

My 13-yr-old son (actually, stepson, and, yes, it does matter) was caught with a pack of cigarettes a couple of months ago. He admitted they were his. He had gotten some older guy to buy them (a big thank you, dickhead) for him. My wife only meted out a 2-week “no phone” punishment. I thought it should have more severe, but I let her handle it. Today, he admits that he smoked again. She gives him a 1-week punishment. Taking away the phone seems to be the only punishment that affects him. He couldn’t care less about losing TV, videogame, or stereo priveleges.

I’m trying to stay as neutral as I can here for fear of attempting to come between a mother and her son. I love the kid as much as if he were my own, but I don’t really think the punsihment is severe enough. I’ve always believed the punishment should NOT fit the crime, it should deter future reoccurences of the crime.

I try to tell him how stupid smoking is and how his friends are losers for smoking. I try to do this in a way that he doesn’t go out and smoke (or worse) out of spite. It doesn’t seem to sink in.

If there is a third time (and, unfortunately, I believe there will be), what should I do?

Stripping his room of anything remotely entertaining and open-ended phone restriction WILL be part of it. I am considering the old “let’s go visit some people dying og lung cancer” bit.

I would really appreciate some advice here.

Yeah I would try the shock therapy angle a bit. Show him some blackened lungs, or someguy with a hole in his throat, and reinforce that you are doing this because you care about him. There should be plenty of resources and pictures on the net to helpl you. Good Luck!

I started smoking when I was 13. Punishment (the ones you and your wife have used) wouldn’t have changed a thing.

My recommondations would be:

  1. Introduce them to someone (if possible) who smokes a LOT. let them get a good feel for how much it smells on them, etc.

  2. LEt them hear from some folks how tough it was to quit. IN fact, have them also call around and find out how much some people end up paying to quit (through various programs and services).

  3. under what conditions was he smoking (ie was it parties? in his room? to relieve stress/boredom? 'cause his friends all smoke?) this may help you know what level it is (for me, I smoked alone 'cause I liked it. Yea, I know not common, and it quickly became a big addiction).

  4. Have him research data on smoking, risks, comparative to other activities. Research data on second hand smoke etc.

OThers may disagree. I am thankful I haven’t had to face this particular one (my son watched his paternal grandfather die by inches from lung cancer, it had a chilling effect on him)

Give him this message from me:

I’m a fairly strong person, very determined etc. I started smoking when I was 13. tried to quit when I was 27, couldn’t, went back w/in days. Got pregnant. I knew that smoking would absolutely harm my unborn child, so decided to not smoke while I was pregnant. That’s the only reason I quit. That was 18 (almost 19) years ago. I haven’t taken it up again for one very, very simple reason:

I never want to go through the hell of quitting again. Never. As much as I loved cigarettes (and I did, from the first), it’s not worth the ‘quitting’. And everyone has to quit, sooner or later (sometimes they die first).

Open ended punnishments are bad, becasue what the kid hears is “you’re punnished until I get over my mad/you manage to whine enough to drive me crazy.” It makes the punnishment about what the parent feels–too angry to be decisive–not what the kid did.

I’d make it either a definite amount of time, or until a definite task has been completed–like a five page typed research paper on the dangers of smoking. After he turns in the first one, edit it (there will be errors), and let him have his fun stuff back after he corrects it and turns back in the polished copy (can you tell I’m an English teacher?) Make sure he does a bibliography and all that fun stuff.

Another thing I would sugest is seriously curtailing his income. Smoking is expensive. Next time (if not this time) I’d cut off his allowance, quit paying him for chores, whatever. Make him start packing a lunch, don’t give him lunch money (this was my cigarrette money). Stress that it isn’t punnishment, it’s just that you can’t trust him with money. Point out that if this continues to be a problem he won’t be allowed to work as a teenager and he will basically be destitute (which he will be anway if he smokes).

Agree to give him some monetary freedom again in six weeks or so, but make it clear that if there are any new signs that he can’t be trusted to spend his money wisely, you will cut off his income for even longer, and ever single purchase he makes, down to a candy bar or a coke, will have to be OKed by you and his mom.

is there a program for such kids - what about volunteering at a hospital in the smoking section or some other community service…

Don’t bother with the taking the kid to the hospital, teens aren’t that far-sighted. What you should do is show him the immediate effects of smoking. If he’s on any sports show him how smoking wrecks your endurance. If you make him smoke a whole carton he definitely won’t want to touch them for a while.

Big Kahuna Burger
Age: 17

Sit with him on a Saturday, and starting right after breakfast, make him smoke. One after the other, no stopping, no letting it burn in the ashtray, just smoke and smoke and smoke and smoke until he vomits.

Then do everything else everyone has recommended.

Nothing you can do is too strong a punishment if it saves him from his own stupid choices.

stoid
ex-smoker who wishes someone had done it to me.

Thanks for the advie so far.

I thought about the “smoking a whole pack” deal. However, what’s to stop him from telling someone and I end in jail on child abuse charges?

If I did do that, however, I would buy the nastiest possible tasting cigarette (any recommendations?) and make him puff
away.
Now my wife, who I love dearly, but her major fault is that she’s a pushover, tells me the kid wants a dog. Stunned into silence, I think, “here’s a kid who apparently has no regard for his own life and he wants to allowed to be responsible for the life of another living being?”

Last year I posted a thread about how I thought my stepson was heading into the exact same direction as my younger brother (quick recap: 35-yrs-old, on his 4 or 5th marriage (I stopped counting), has 3-6 kids (depending on DNA samples), can’t keep a job, car, or a decent place to live, has 4 DUIs, has been in jail at least twice). My mother let him drop out of school in the NINTH GRADE (that’s very unlikely to happen since my stepson goes to the school where my teaches, which is also a part of the problem, I think) and basically throw his life away all the time hiding these things from my father. My brother started with smoking and went steadily downhill (drugs, alcohol, etc).

Major reaction to that thread was that I was over-reacting.

I think that taking away he fun stuff and telephone priveleges would a good start. He will learn a valuable lesson in having to deal with the consequences of actions.

I’m afraid, though, it will all end in a messy showdown with my wife.

Of course, I may just be over-reacting, I hope so.

Here’s that “c” I missed. :rolleyes:

Have him figure out how much a pack a day will cost him over a month, a year, a decade…then two packs, etc. Good math practice. Ask him about things he wants to buy, and have him figure out how much they’ll cost.

And I really second the “curtail his money” idea. If he wants something, you or his mom have to be with him to buy it. Make him pack his lunch. And keep a close eye on money at home, too. Put his allowance or chore payments in the bank, and again, Mom or Stepdad has to physically be there to purchase anything. This has the added benefit of being shameful (being seen in public with the 'rents is SO uncool).

How about pointing out the manipulations the tobacco companies use to get him to smoke? Make him feel like an idiot for buying it? They use the ‘rebel’ image to their advantage to attract kids who want to be sexy and rebellious. Point out that he is paying them to let him be their slave–and a slave to an enormous capitalist-pig international company, at that. How is it rebellious and cool to do exactly what a bunch of aging white CEOs want him to do?

That kind of thing. I know he’s not a girl, but the info on smoking in this book is interesting. deadly Persuasion

Don’t make him smoke a pack…

MAKE HIM EAT ONE!

give him ‘hippie hunter’ lighters on a windy day.

get a load of cheap lighters with the adjustable flame height. pop the metal guard off, turn it to full, then lift the adjuster so it slips off the screw, move it to the low position and push it up. repeat until you hear hissing then back it off.

when junior comes home with no eyebrows on that breezy day, youll know. I did this to a friend who smoked, he was nervous everytime he asked someone for a light and got that kind of lighter.

Boy, that’s a real problem.

I can say that for younger folks, autopsy photos and other gruesome sights are unlikely to have an effect. Unfortunately, kids believe they are invulnerable, bad things always happen to the “other guy.”

I would try a positive reinforcement type inducement. Offer a certain amount of money if he agrees to remain tobacco free till he’s say, 18. Virtually all the other methods are likely to fail, I’m afraid. Trust, but verify. How you ensure they aren’t dipping or smoking on the sly is a tough one, too.

But I’m pretty sure if you make the reward high enough, he might bite.

Give 'im the electric chair!

Some parents do offer sums of money, but the age is usually 21, since almost nobody starts smoking after that.

Then there’s that fun, but hard-to-attribute quote:

I hate smoking now… but when I was his age, I was smoking. I gave it up because i figured it wasn’t all that neat ( I did get a buzz) my parents found out, and my dad was mad (ex-smoker) but said he still loved me and was dissapointed. I gave it up about 2 weeks later because it cost too much. Be nice, because knowing me, you will have to save up the big punishments for later on in the teen years :smiley:

I agree with the idea of making him smoke a lot of them, though a whole carton would probably kill him. Just make him chain smoke about 3 or 4 cigarettes, no breaths of fresh air, just one drag after another. He will feel sick as a dog and there’s a good chance it will condition him against smoking - I was learning in psychology class how one of the most effective negative stimuli in classical conditioning is nausea, and I agree - for years I could not bring myself to eat ham because I threw up after eating it once when I was a young child. If you can get him to puke from smoking it will probably make him sick every time he tastes cigarette smoke for years.

My 2 cents :

I agree with Wring in that the punishments wouldn’t have worked on me at that age.

However, I also would never have told the truth about smoking. I would’ve lied through my teeth and never admitted a thing. I think this is important, because it shows a lot about the relationship he has with his parents.

Since I do not believe punishments will achieve anything, I would suggest trying some of the alternative ideas, such as getting him to calculate cost, and getting him to do a bit of biology (so he can break through the “it won’t happen to me” thing) and to also talk with some people who are dying from it, and others who found it horrendously hard to quit. If he is money-motivated, that may work, too.

Hopefully that will work. I recently quit (after about 9 years of smoking) and, while I didn’t find it hard, I can’t believe the difference it made to my body and outlook on life.

What sort of kid is he ? What normally motivates him to do stuff ? Money ? Peer pressure ? Looks ? Think about what motivates him in other situations, and try and apply it to this one.

Good luck with him. Maybe you could show your wife this thread and see what she thinks.

Pall Malls, unfiltered.

One of my role models from my early teens would have been very disappointed in me had he discovered I was a smoker. That almost made me quit. Anybody your kid think is cool that would disapprove of his carcinogenic suicide?

Good luck.