Children Concerned About Their Parents' Smoking

Children experience concern and fear when their parents smoke. A report by the Finnish Cancer Society has revealed that the children of smokers worry about their own future as well as that of their parents. There are differences in the ways that children and their parents handle the parent's smoking habit. Only one-tenth of smoking parents believe that their children fear that they will become ill or die as a result of the habit. However the research indicates that children understand the dangers of smoking very well. At the same time, parents rarely discuss the emotions that their smoking may arouse in their children. As many as 60 percent of smoking parents don’t believe that the habit will adversely affect their children's health. And while up to 80 percent of smokers wouldn’t want their children to light up, studies show that the children of smokers are more likely than others to follow their parents into the addiction. The Cancer Society looked at two studies was conducted in 2006 and 2007 in order to understand the impact of parents’ smoking on their children. In November 2007 the research firm Taloustutkimus interviewed 395 smoking parents. A qualitative study in 2006 looked at 28 children with at least one smoking parent, as well as 30 smoking parents. YLE