This is not my story; it is one a colleague of mine told me. I am not sure if I would have done what her mother did, but it worked!
When she was about 12 or thirteen my colleague and her girlfriend took up smoking. And naturally, her mother found out. She saw the half-smoked pack of cigarettes in her schoolbag.
I guess every parent has to face this scenario, finding something in your child’s backpack that doesn’t belong there as far as you’re concerned. Cigarettes, condoms, drugs, weapons, Barry Manilow CD’s – whatever it is, there’s that moment when you have to react, and do so appropriately.
You know the more upset and angry you get, the more the kid will tune you out. You know that doing nothing is not the answer. You have to confront the kid.
You could show your child x-rays of what a lung looks like after years of smoking. You could talk about emphysema and how smoking affects so many health issues. You could ask if your daughter is worried about gaining weight or is carrying other stresses, play the understanding psychologist and see if that gets you to that After-School Special moment.
My colleague’s mom was a bit more direct. She said, “you wanna smoke. Let’s see you smoke.”
She made her smoke the rest of the pack of cigarettes, one by one. Full drags. After all, it’s what adults do, and if she wanted to be like an adult and smoke, she better start smoking like an adult as soon as possible.
After about five or six, my colleague threw up. She was turning green. Her mother made her finish the pack. She threw up once more. And never smoked another cigarette again.
Is this a case of tough love, to force your child to do something until she is physically sick? Maybe. I’m not sure if I’d do it to my children if I caught them smoking (though I’d be honest and tell them they could not do it in my house and that they better be prepared to do their own laundry). But I know that I have tended to stay away from things that make me sick, like leftover fried green tomatoes, one of those Costco party snack mixes with sesame sticks, and tequila. Somehow that association with nausea remains very strong.
My colleague told me this story with a certain amount of charm – she’s a poet and playwright and weaves a fine tale. So it’s possible that she’s added something here and there. But I can picture her mother, looking much like my colleague today, giving the lesson just that way.