Dealing with Teenage Smoking
In the early 1970's, The Brady Bunch featured a very rare plotline involving social commentary in which Greg was caught smoking cigarettes. Or, rather, they found cigarettes in his jacket and they turned out not to be his…you have to love how they skirted making a character look bad. What was interesting about this episode was that smoking was generally not presented in a bad light on television.
In fact, a number of television "good guys" loved to puff away on camera. So, to see an episode that head butted teenage smoking was groundbreaking. However, the presentation was idealized and trite as dealing with teenage smoking is a complicated process.
The Teenage Element
Teenagers are very difficult to reach sometimes. That is to say, no matter how much you try to reason with a teenager it becomes difficult to sway opinions mainly because teenagers are not exactly known for their capacity to embody logic. As such, even when you confront a teenage with facts it can be difficult to get them to respond in the manner in which you would wish them to respond.
When it comes to the subject of teenage smoking this can be doubly frustrating mainly because of the seriousness of the health problems that a teenager might develop after a lifetime of health problems due to repeated smoking over an extended period of time.
When it comes to being a teenager, there will always be a desire to rebel or embody the counterculture. Additionally, teenagers often do not think of themselves as being vulnerable. Teenagers are risk takers and when it comes to teenage smoking, the negative effects of smoking do not manifest until many years later so teenagers are less inclined to take smoking serious.
Of course, this is compounded by the fact many images still bombard teenagers with the notion that smoking is cool or hip. Granted, many teenagers can also see through this type of nonsense but then there will be those teenagers who are real susceptible to such imagery.
This is a shame because if a teenager starts smoking they may not be able to quit and this could lead to a number of problems into adulthood. Then again, that is also why many tobacco companies encourage such behavior because it sets the stage for gaining a customer for life. As such, the ability to curtail teenage smoking is much harder than most would assume despite the severity of the situation.
