Parents can prevent cigarette smoking!

As I teacher, I was very concerned about my children's health, especially those of my gymnasts. One of the devil's tool in bringing down the good health of children is cigarettes. (In an earlier post, I had written about one of my promising gymnast's fall from possible fame.)

One of the things I used to show my students in order for them to understand the effect of cigarette smoke on their body was to light a candle or a kerosene lamp. A glass funnel is then place over this light. After some time they can see a thin layer of smoke stain on the glass. I asked them to imagine what would happen if the funnel were their throat and lungs. With the funnel, we can use a soft brush and sop to clean the stain off. Can we push a long enough brush down our throat and into the lungs to remove the stain?

I would also point to the yellowish stain on smokers' fingers and teeth. with merely a little smoke grazing the nails and teeth, such yellow stains can be seen; what about the amount of smoke puffed into the throat and lungs?

Another object I used to demostrate this was the wok. I would show them the bottom of the wok and asked them whether they know where the thick layer of black soot came from. Yes, most of them were intelligent enough to know it came from the smoke. Well, what about the smoke that goes into the throat and lungs of smokers?
After years of smoking, how thick would it be? Would it not caused the air-passages in the lungs to be narrower limiting amount of precious oxygen bearing air reaching the various organs and cells of our body?

When it came to my children, I am a walking example of a healthy individual who does not smoke.

Whenever we found smokers around, I reminded them of the foul tobacco smell and got ourselves to move away from such a lousy smell.

Sometimes, it was just impossible to avoid such cigarette smoke. When it happened, I would have my children be aware of the foul cigarette smell on our clothes. How can anyone be comfortable with such a smell emitting from a person while the rest of the world bathe often to feel and smell clean and fresh while some even use mild perfume to have themselves smell presentable.

The above methods were used by me to educate my children on cigarette smoke with success as they do not smoke, and nowadays they are the ones who pull me away from smokers.

I did tell them about my once promising gymnast's unfortunate fate so as to have them aware of the results of smoking cigarettes.

There is nothing pleasant about cigarette smoking. And what is important here is that it is the truth. A first timer at cigarette smoking would cough and choke on the smoke. It would definitely be unpleasant. With the above awareness in place earlier, there is no way your child can take up cigarette smoking.

Well, the danger is out there, for cigarettes can lead to other drugs. Plan to overcome this danger and awareness removes it from our children.