Q:
Your son has a friend whose parents are heavy smokers. Is it OK to prohibit him from playing at their house?
Parent advice
A parent’s priority is always to protect his or her child. Secondhand smoke is a true health risk. Invite your child’s friend to your house to protect them both from unnecessary toxins.
— Leslie Abrahamson
Have a conversation with the parents and ask if they smoke inside. If they only smoke outside, I would consider letting my kid go over there. I’d make it clear to my child that if they smoke inside, he should call me immediately and I’ll come and get him.
— Denise Lease
Your kid, your rules. Their house, their rules. If the family yelled at each other and swore like pirates and lived in a pigsty, I’d have no problem saying no. Just offer your house for a play date.
— Tania Licata
Expert advice
Healthwise, this seems like a no-brainer. The Environmental Protection Agency urges parents to limit children’s exposure to secondhand smoke, citing research that shows exposure causes approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths per year and an increased risk of heart disease.
Children, says the EPA, are especially vulnerable to the dangers of secondhand smoke because they are still developing physically and have higher breathing rates than adults. Kids regularly exposed to secondhand smoke are at increased risk of asthma, middle ear infections and lower respiratory tract infections such as pneumonia and bronchitis.
All that said, there is a case to be made for letting your child play at his pal’s house, says Jim Fay, president of the Love and Logic Institute in Golden, Colo.
“You can either stand between your kids and the struggles they face growing up or you can stand behind them and support them while they learn to deal with these struggles,” says Fay. “Far better that we teach our kids to protect themselves than we go in and do it for them all the time.”
Rather than outright prohibiting him from visiting his friend, Fay recommends helping your child hatch a plan for the play date.
“Say to your child, ‘They’re heavy smokers. Do you like the smell of that stuff? If not, you might want to ask your friend if you can play outside,'” Fay suggests. “Help him decide what to say to his friend. ‘I don’t handle smoke very well. Can we play outside?'”
Your child will be exposed to more secondhand smoke with this approach, but Fay says it’s a fair trade-off.
“The emotional risks are far greater than the health risks if you try to engineer the perfect world for your kid,” he says. “They grow up believing they can’t handle difficult situations, and they think the quality of their life is always in somebody else’s hands.”
Besides, Fay says, arming your child to handle his pal’s smoking parents is good practice for handling his smoking friends down the road.
“When he’s older and he wants to go to a party where you think there might be alcohol or drugs, you’ll ask your child, ‘What’s your plan?’ If he says, ‘You know I don’t do that stuff,’ well, that’s not a plan. ‘Just trust me, Dad.’ Well, that’s not a plan either,” Fay says. “‘When a kid offers me something to try, I just say that I really like hanging out with you, but that’s not my thing.’ That’s a plan. Or, ‘My parents are really ridiculous, and if they catch me even talking to you about this they’ll take all my college money and send me to rehab.’ That’s a plan.”
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