My mum grounded my brother who was a similar age for the whole of the summer hols!! lol. I think it worked at the time.... he's 20and smokes alot now though!

I think you might want to get to the bottom of WHY he's smoking as well as punishing him. Is he seeing other adults doing it? Are his friends doing it? Love Dove's idea - get picks of body parts off the Internet too :o)

With Dove on this, get him to research the bad effects of smoking, not only lung but also mouth cancer. Appeal to his vanity with the smelling bad and yellow fingers and the premature ageing.

in fact it's not just me and his dad that smoke, his uncles, aunties, and grandparents all smoke

i cant say anything i started to smoke at that age coz my grandad died then 2 months later i quit coz i realised it wouldnt bring my grandad back so.. only suggestion is have a serious talk with him

I've already sent him up the shop and demanded the change which I'd usually let him keep. The kids money boxes are going to be hidden and we roll our own fags so all our stuff is now hidden when we're not about if it's not on us (like at night but I tend to be the first one up anyway). What makes it more difficult is that he is away from us 5 days of the week so we can't control what money he gets hold of (apparantly he has taken money from his mum before but she's taking care of that). I pay his mobile phone contract so he doesn't need money for top ups. I think we'll just have to keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't diappear out of sight for a while. He has no friends over our house he prefers to spend time on the xbox talking to his own friends so he has no reason to go out..shoudn't be too hard!

I'm going to agree with Grumpyoldmoo and Gem.
At 13, grounding them, removing their X Box and making them a slave won't work. You need to stop all money getting into his hands! No pocket money, only a packed lunch for school... I think that will be punishment enough. Also, as Grumpy said, his peers will soon get bored of supplying him! xx

I'm going to play at devil's advocate here;

You smoke, his dad smokes, pretty much his whole family smokes, his friends smoke - you and his dad stop and ask yourselves why he might have started in the first place. If he's been brought up with smoking being the 'norm' then it's a natural progression that he would start at some point.
I grew up in a family of smokers and I started when I was 15 - I didn't want to smoke, I hated the taste of it, the smell it left behind, everything about it made me feel ill but because it was 'what grown ups did' I followed suit. Basically I took on board the example my family set for me.

Punishment doesn't work because even at that age he'll know how hypocritical you're both being, showing him horrible pictures of black lungs won't work either because if smoking is that bad then why are you still doing it.

If you're determined to get him to kick the habit then the best thing you can do is to encourage him to quit leading by example. I'm not saying you and your H2B quit (though it would do you both good) but don't smoke in front of him, talk to him about why he thinks he started, tell him why you started smoking, tell him how much money you've quite literally burnt over the years - if anything is going to get through to him then it's that approach.

Stop his pocket money because if he hasn't got any money he'll find it very difficult to get his ciggies - that and encouragement should be the ticket
xxx

hmmm.... please dont think i am being a b*tch here, but you cant really tell him to stop smoking etc when everyone around him is doing it. telling him all the negatives while you have got a cigarette in your hand is not going to make him stop.

I lost my nan to lung cancer in december and believe me it was horrendous. she was house bound for 3 years before she passed away as she couldnt walk far and was embarressed to be in a wheelchair. the last few months she slept in the lounge as she couldnt get up and down the stairs. when she dies she lost ALOT of blood and the paramedics told my aunt she probably wouldnt have felt a thing, i really hope that is true. she lived for 2 years from when she was first diagnosed which i think is really good as the cancer spread to her brain and spine and there was no treatment.

HOWEVER, my other nan was admitted to hospital in 2000 and she was in hospital for a few days when they diagnosed her with mouth and throat cancer, 2 weeks later she passed away and she had quit smoking atleast 20 years before. my dad had been smoking since he was 10 and within a year of his mum passing he had quit and he was 40 at the time. That was 9 years ago.

So please, not just for your health, but for your children, dont say that after 10 years of smoking you dont have the willpower to quit. it may be hard to quit, i did it myself, but just think how hard it will be for your kids and grandchildren when you have a smoking related disease that cant be cured. try to imagine your beautiful kids in 30-40 years, sitting around your bed while your hooked up to a oxygen tank, wishing you had just quit smoking all them years ago.

Instead of telling him off and showing him the bad effects, sit together as a family and do it together, you might see something that will give you the boost you need to quit. punishing him for doing something he is seeing all around him is a bit hypocritical but i suppose its a "do as i say and not as i do" situation.

Hope you dont think I was being too forward, just wanted to give my opinion xxx

i agree with the girls above ....why not all give up together

I HATE smoking. I think you should ALL sit down and look at the pictures of what it does to your lungs.

Perhaps instead of punishing him, you could all join a stop smoking class. Make him see that smoking isnt the way to go. I whole heartedly agree with Anglean. I had to watch my nan die from lung cancer. I used to hide her cigarettes but she still kept smoking.

Dont let your kids and your future grand kids feel like they should have done more to stop you from smoking. Trust me, it will kill them every day

I smoke - i've been a smoker for over 20 years - i quit several times.

Its not as easy as TELLING someone to quit and what can happen to them etc etc etc - we KNOW what can happen we aint stupid - once your addicted thats it - its very hard to stop

Punishment wont work - stopping his pocketmoney wont work - you need to sit together and talk about it and all make a pact to quit - IF thats what you want.

i agree with goff i was 12 his age when i started smoking and been saying i will give up its hard and the best way is 2 send him 2 no smoking and get him patches they will do his head in there and give him a rollocking

When I quit it was because no one around me smoked, it did make it easier, but it is not something that you can be told to do it is something that you will one day wake up and just decide to do...addiction is hard whether it is cigs, alcohol, drugs or anything else. I hope that you manage to get through to your H2b son and that you can also give up too...good luck with it.

I agree that you shouldn't punish him more than you already have if you and everybody else he knows are still smoking. I think all you can try to discourage him by cutting off his pocket money and teasing him about the side effects (eg impotence) if you think he is still doing it.

Can't you find something else to do for five minutes, if you are only doing it for five minutes peace? Have a cup of tea and a biscuit instead, or just sit on the back step and do some relaxing breathing or something. There are plenty of ways to take five minutes out without damaging your health and setting a bad example to your kids.

Did you know one person dies of asthma in the UK every seven hours? It is a serious condition and abusing your lungs further is really dangerous.

Pictures, stories of people with cancer and going to see the nurse wont work, give him incentive. I.e if you don't smoke for the whole week your here we'l give you a new game for the x-box.

Talk to him about whether he's had a cigarette today, and how does he feel.

My parents ignored their suspicions that I smoked and believed me that - those fags were my friends, I'd been in a smokers house etc. Now they don't know, but every now and again will ask me and it's got to the point where I wont tell them. I shower and change before I see them, they're not allowed to turn up unexpected and I am the picture of a non smoker around them.

i think you have punished him enough already, let him make his own mistakes x

Good post kerrylou. Your not being a b!tch, your saying it exactly how it is. I totally agree with you xxxx

my mum caught me at that age and i had lots various punishments. it makes no difference whether u came from a 'smokers' home as neither of my parents smoke infact they were soooo against it and they still are. i ignored them everytime as because they were so against it, it made me wana defy them even more. i smoke regularly now and the only times i have ever stopped is when i was pregnant. and i do agree with kerrylou. having said that if you keep on and on and on at him then hes just gona wana do it more. the only advise i can give to you is let him make his own mistakes show him what he is doing to his body and if he still wants to take this risk then you have to let him there is no way you can be with him 24/7 unless you ground him til hes 18. if it was me i would confiscate all cigarettes that come into my house and pocket money, or any money would be taken away (and saved, in their bank for when they are grown up enough) tell all the teachers not to let him out of school grounds at lunch times and ground him, and quit smoking myself set an example. hope this helps hun xxxxxx