TITLE:
Education is the key to protecting children against smoking: What parents think and do
AUTHORS:
S. P. Small, A. L. Brennan-Hunter
KEYWORDS:
Smoking Prevention; Tobacco Education; Health Promotion; Protection; Pre-Adolescent Children; Parental Education
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Nursing,
Vol.4 No.2,
February
13,
2014
ABSTRACT:
The purpose of this study
was to examine parents’ communication with their children about the topic of
smoking. A qualitative descriptive design was used. Twenty-nine parents who
lived in rural communities and who had children in kindergarten to Grade 6 were
interviewed. The data were analyzed for themes. A large majority of parents
communicated with their children about smoking through verbal interaction,
using any one of three approaches: discussing
smoking with their children, telling
their children about smoking, or acknowledging
their children’s understanding of
smoking. Those parents also had shown disapproval of smoking, which took
different forms and varied from explicit messages in their verbal communication
to implicit messages in their behaviours.
Three parents had not verbally communicated at all with their children about
smoking. Overall, the parents’ communication patterns with their children
varied in terms of quality and coherence with recommendations in the literature.