Page:Your teenage children and smoking.djvu/16

 Delaying instructions, waiting for the time when your child has an active interest, may be too late. In other words, it is dangerous to put off adding the "no smoking" warning to your list of health rules.

Here are a few ideas that you and your child may want to talk about:

Some of the smartest people in this country are stopping smoking. They have been in a position to get the facts, and they are acting on them. Doctors in great numbers have stopped, as have many scientists, athletes, teachers, engineers, military men.

In many places, smoking is no longer "the thing."

Smoking costs money. A pack a day may mean about $100 a year. "Is that the way you want your money to go?"

You don't have to wait 10, 15, 20 years for the bad effects of smoking. Some are early—right now, in fact: coughing, shortness of breath, loss of appetite and weight, weakening of taste, bad taste in mouth and on breath, sluggishness, reduced stamina for swimming, tennis, football—all athletics.

Each day, each week, each month, each year you put off smoking, you decrease the risk.

If you stop smoking, things are in your favor. If you want to be an athlete, smoking is not for you. If you smoke, you inhale before you realize it. When you are in the habit of inhaling, it may be too late to stop.

If a boy or girl smokes, he can blame nobody but himself. Not his parents, his friends, nor anyone else. Just him.