6 ways to help your vaping kid kick the habit

Parents of vaping teens, take heart. Experts says the COVID-19 crisis could be the best time for you to help your child quit.

Here are six ways you can help your kid kick the harmful habit.

1. Do your homework

Know how the vaping devices look like. E-cigarettes have been designed to look like everyday items used by many teens. They may be disguised as pens, USB drives, and watches. This makes it easier for teens to hide and use them.

Read up on how e-cigarettes harm teens. “Parents need to be educated about the chemical effects of vaping,” says Dr. Jolly Michelle Bustamante, a child and adolescent psychiatrist. “They need to educate their kids before they hear things from other kids.”

Keep in mind that teens are influenced by their peers and are bombarded with aggressive youth-focused advertising on social media. So, arm yourself with the right information. Here are a few useful links:

• The American Lung Association
• Parents Against Vaping
• Scholastic Inc.
• The Tobacco Prevention Toolkit
• The U.S. Surgeon General

Be aware that it is illegal for Filipinos younger than 21 to use, sell, or buy e-cigarettes or their components. Executive Order No. 106, which took effect in February 2020, prohibits this act.

2. Consult your child’s pediatrician

The Philippine Pediatric Society uses the same “5 As” to address tobacco use in order to help teens quit vaping: Ask about the use of e-cigarettes. Advise against it. Assess the teen’s readiness to quit. Assist if the teen is ready to quit. Arrange a follow-up discussion to see how the quit attempt is going.

3. Call the DOH Quitline

If the teen has “severe tobacco dependence or withdrawal symptoms,” the Philippine Pediatric Society protocol is to refer him or her to the Department of Health Quitline. The quitline is a telephone counseling service for people who want to stop smoking. They can call three numbers:

• A landline, 165364, can be called by landline users in Metro Manila for free.
• Two mobile numbers, (0921) 203 9534 (Smart/TNT/Sun) and (0977) 627 7539 (Globe/TM), can be accessed by cellphone users. Unless they enjoy unlimited calls, though, the usual charges will apply. The counselors will call the person seeking support so that he need not pay these charges.

Roberto Garcia Jr., who manages the quitline’s operations, says the counselors can help vapers quit, too. To date, though, “no vaping teen has enrolled in our program.”

Callers to the DOH quitline receive free advice. Photo by Dinna Louise C. Dayao

4. Give small, immediate rewards for being vape-free

It’s tempting to exaggerate the long-term harms of teen vaping and scare kids into quitting. But it may not work. “The human brain is more sensitive to swift and certain environment responses to behavior than to distant and probabilistic ones,” write Keith Humphreys, Robert C. Malenka, Brian Knutson, and Robert J. MacCoun in a Science article. The article is entitled, “Brains, environments, and policy responses to addiction.”

Still, parents can take a leaf from the article. The authors write that “programs that change behavior through the use of immediate, small rewards have demonstrated impressive efficacy.” On the home front, at the end of a teen’s vape-free day, parents can give him or her a little something, such as a favorite food, to reward the teen.

5. Know your child very well

Dr. Bustamante sees teen vaping as a symptom that the child needs something—such as “validation from peers, relaxation, privacy, independence”—that vaping fulfills. Therefore, the validation that parents give must be more attractive than vaping.
She says, “Adolescents have to prove an identity.” If, for example, your teen is vaping because he is physically weak, then maybe you can encourage him to exercise instead of vaping and buy him snazzy workout clothes. Dr. Bustamante says, “It’s not the buying per se that’s important. It’s the being someone. Knowing what the child needs, wants, or wants to be will be the best way to substitute or eventually remove the vaping.”

6. Be a tobacco-free role model

“Half of the kids who tried vaping have parents who vape,” says pediatrician Dr. Rizalina R. H. Gonzalez. These parents will have a tough time persuading their teens to quit the vice when they themselves indulge in it.

Parents should walk the talk. Ann Regoso-Abacan, the principal of the Sophia School in Meycauayan, Bulacan, has a hard time advising students against vaping when they have a parent who also vapes or allows the child to do so. She says, “It boils down to the values of the family. As someone once said, values are not taught, they are caught.”

But you don't have to do everything yourself. You'd be relieved to learn that the Department of Education is also doing its part to help students who got themselves into vaping kick the habit.

In August 2019, Education Secretary Leonor Briones issued DepEd Memorandum No. 111 series of 2019 reminding all concerned DepEd officials as well as public and private school heads that the “sale and use of cigarettes (smoking)” as well as the “distribution, sale, and offering and the use of and other electronic nicotine and non-nicotine delivery system (ENDS/ENNDS)” are “absolutely prohibited” in all schools and DepEd offices.

The memo states that “Learners and personnel who are in need of brief tobacco intervention and/or referral to cessation services shall continue to be provided with such services.” Gian Erik M. Adao, education program specialist II, School Health Division, Bureau of Learner Support Services, says that the bureau started training health personnel to conduct brief tobacco intervention in the last quarter of 2019. Forty-eight personnel from all over the country have been trained.

When it comes to educating children about the dangers of e-cigarettes, Mr. Adao says the bureau is “working with the information communication technology service where we are having a folder in the portal of Open Educational Resources on health, which includes vaping and tobacco.” — LA, GMA News 

This story was produced under the “Nagbabagang Kuwento Media Fellowship Program Cycle 4” by Probe Media Foundation Inc. (PMFI) and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CFTFK). The views and opinions expressed in this piece are not necessarily those of PMFI and CFTFK.