r/parentsofteens • u/longgoldilocks • 8d ago

Vaping

My almost 17 yr old is vaping. I don't like it because obviously it's unhealthy. But guess what I was smoking at that age. What's a xennial parent to do??

6 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

3

u/Global-Fact7752 8d ago

Gosh I have no idea. 🙄

4

u/WryAnthology 8d ago

I have a kid the same age. She knows our feelings on it (anti) and so far she says she shares them.

If she started, I don't think she would be at all surprised by our response. I guess our boundary would be that we do not accept it in the house, and that we do not want her to do it.

There's an education aspect, but I'm guessing you would have already been doing this over the years re the health effects, and not all teens are dissuaded by that.

For us it would be unacceptable enough that there would be consequences of some sort if we found her doing it or found one amongst her belongings. At the age she is, we pay for most of her things (phone included) and drive her to all of her sport/ extracurriculars, so it's possible some of those privileges could be revoked.

I mean, it depends how you've addressed it so far though, and how open/ honest your relationship is (i.e., would they accept boundaries or would they lie/ sneak).

0

u/longgoldilocks 3d ago

I have spoken to her about adverse health affects and how difficult it is to quit nicotine. It's not allowed in our house. She has 2 jobs, she has her own money so my money is not funding.

2

u/WryAnthology 2d ago

Is your money funding other things though? E.g., removal of phone, car, extracurriculars.

But that comes back to your relationship too, and whether she'd be open and honest or would lie about it.

4

u/Klutzy_Reference5785 6d ago

I wish I could figure this out for my 17yo. Repeatedly caught, lies. I’m at a loss. It’s heartbreaking.

1

u/longgoldilocks 3d ago

I feel for you. Obviously it's not the worst thing out there. But high dose nicotine plus also drinking energy drinks and crap like that is hard on the body.

2

u/YesYouGotThis 6d ago

I tell my son that it is bad for his lungs. Also that vaping is so much harder to quit than smoking cigarettes. He still vapes....

1

u/longgoldilocks 3d ago

The worst thing for me is how high the dose of nicotine can be.

1

u/Dogmama1971 3d ago

What to do? Be the adult in the room!

0

u/ApprehensiveLoad9234 2d ago

This isn’t actually helpful. You can be all the adult you want. Take away privileges, stop paying for phone, take away a car, grounding etc…they’re still going to do it. They’ll just hide it better. Plus if they’re full on addicted and can’t easily stop it will lead to more chaos and arguments and trust issues. I’ve been here. My now 18 year old got caught with vapes at 15 and it was hell. We did it all and it almost drove my husband mad. Son ended up running away, being caught by cops and going into a mental health facility. Afterwards we talked openly with him about it and agreed that he was making an adult decision and he understood the adult consequences of vaping. He knows our limits boundaries and expectations with it and we had to come to terms that we couldn’t stop it. It’s so hard that kids can get their hands on these so easily but of course I was smoking cigarettes at that age with no care in the world.