In the Government’s latest stop smoking campaign it urges parents to stub out their habit so that their children do not follow in their footsteps. Research has shown that if parents smoke it dramatically increases the chances that their children will become smokers. Well maybe, but both my parents are smokers and both my brother and I have never smoked and the same for my husband’s parents they used to both smoke but stopped a few years back and out of their 4 boys only one smokes.

New Television adverts have been set to the music of the Jungle Book’s I wanna be like you and show examples of how youngsters copy their mums as dads. I saw one of these adverts today and it begin with harmless examples like doing the housework and watching TV but ends with the image of a little girl picking up crayon copying her mother as she takes a drag on a cigarette. People might say children copy, well yes they do but do you really want them coping that?

Dawn Primarolo who is the Public Health Minister and Launching the £5.2 million national campaign said that “This campaign highlights the fact that children absorb what is going on around them - therefore habits such as smoking seem normal in young people’s eyes. Stopping smoking is the best thing you can do for your own health but what people may not realise is that it’s also an incredibly positive thing to do for the futures of those closest to you.”

The Eastern and Coastal Kent Stop Smoking Service said that “Stopping smoking is the best thing many people can do for their own and their child’s health.”

I think that what parents who smoke have to remember is that because they smoke they can not smell the smoke on their children’s clothes and they are sending them to school like it and other children might be saying that they smell. This is not fair on the children they don’t ask to smell.

Yes I know you are properly are saying here is another non smoker moaning again but maybe if you just sat back and really thought what you could be doing to your children then maybe that would give you the incentive to stop or if not to stop smoking around them.

What do you make of these adverts?

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