It's the moment every health-conscious parent dreads. After years of warning your offspring about the risks of smoking, one of your teenage children admits to being addicted. So what can you do when the worst happens? Lots, as it turns out...

I NEVER thought my teenage son would smoke. I believed that because I was honest and open with him about the dangers and effects of smoking, he would somehow be able to eschew the pressure from his peers and scoff at their attempts to get him to have a puff. I was wrong.

Gone is that smug look I had on my face as I listened to other mothers bemoan their concerns for their offspring after finding fags languishing at the bottom of school sacks, confident it wouldn't be my son.

I felt I'd done all I could, believing that it was lack of information, discipline and self-esteem that prompted a child to put a stick of cancer-inducing weed into their mouths and smoke it. Again I was wrong.

Recent research points out just how wrong. Pfizer Healthcare Ireland commissioned The voice of young people -- a report on teenagers' attitudes to smoking, looking at the habits and motivations of teen smokers, and the findings should concern us all.

It reports that most teenagers know about the health risks of smoking but they don't care, believing they will stop later in life -- although, sadly, most won't. Others find it hard to make the connection between the cigarette and the damage, despite being educated about it, and many start due to boredom. One teen said: "It was something to do at weekends."

Bad influences

The report found that 28pc of all Irish 16- and 17-year-olds smoke and the vast majority started before the age of 18. Sadly, 16pc of 12- to 17-year-olds smoke. Worrying statistics for every parent and we need to be aware that our behaviour is a significant factor in whe-ther or not a child starts smoking.

Three-quarters of smokers between eight and 17 said that at least one other member of their household smoked. One young secondary school student from Galway said: "My parents used to smoke. They pretty much gave me the talk, but they knew it was going to happen anyway. They probably think it's just a phase. I'm only young, at the end of the day."

Research carried out by the Ulster Cancer Foundation (UCF) found the number of teenage smokers has started to decline in keeping with the figures for adult smokers. Gerry McElwee, the UCF's head of cancer prevention, says this shows a significant link between the behaviour of adult smokers and their children.

"Evidence shows that more adults are kicking the habit and this is having a positive effect on their children. In the last four years, fewer secondary school pupils smoke and there is a link with fewer adults smoking in the home, coupled with smoking education in schools."

Sian O'Neill, who lives in Belfast, gave up smoking at 22, eight years after she started aged 14. She says that living in a household where both parents smoked was a factor.

"There was nothing strange about smoking for me, it was normalised as both mine smoked. Even though my mother was very anti-smoking and did everything she could to discourage me, I still tried it very young and by 14 I was smoking regularly."

Sian agrees that smokers know the dangers, but do it anyway. "Me and my friends all felt that it wouldn't happen to us, that we'd be alright if we smoked.

"It was a bonding experience for us -- we would buy a packet of 10 at the weekends and have two each, then share the rest. I tried to hide it from my mum by spraying deodorant on my fingers, but she knew and just said to me one day, 'Do you think I'm stupid?'"

Sian has been off cigarettes for over 10 months now. She says the best advice she can pass on to someone trying to stop is to be properly prepared: organise yourself so there's less stress and prepare yourself mentally for what you're going to do.

This is something James Williams from Co Tipperary would agree with. He has made several attempts to stop smoking in the past and is now in his first month off cigarettes. As a busy publisher with a family, he says his two daughters, Maya (three) and Liya (two), are his biggest motivation in wanting to quit.

"I look at my daughters and realise I have a responsibility to be there for them," he says. "I'm doing it cold turkey as I don't believe getting more nicotine from a patch is the way to live without nicotine.

"I've smoked for 20 years, but when I look at my little girls I have to ask myself what is the future of this addiction. I want to be there for them for as long as I can be." James said both his parents smoked so he grew up with it in his household. Although he never smoked around his family, he still didn't want that around his children.

"If you smoke and you're telling your child not to, you're being a hypocrite -- and your child will know that," said a plain-speaking friend of mine some time back. Certainly, that was a big motivation in me giving up cigarettes in 2002.

My child was eight and had started to notice what I was doing as a parent. I went to an Allen Carr seminar in Cork and during the day we were asked to list the reasons we didn't want to smoke anymore, and to refer to that list in times of weakness. High on that list was, 'I don't want to teach my son that smoking is OK.'

Perhaps why they start is not the issue. As responsible parents, the question we need to focus on is what do we do if they do? I've been advised to put myself in my son's shoes when thinking about what would help. I started young and remember being shown a horrific film at school about the effects of smoking on the body.

It was so bad I'd have preferred death then to succumb to throat cancer or emphysema, but it still didn't stop me smoking. I thought then the same way that our kids do today -- it won't happen to me.

When my father threatened to stop my pocket money if he caught me smoking again, I just hid it better. When I first smelled smoke on Sam I talked to him about it. He assured me it was just the once; he wanted to try it, his mates all tried it, they didn't like it, they wouldn't do it again. I felt assured and stayed smug a little while longer.

But, time and again, after a night out with friends he'd come home reeking like a local pub before the smoking ban. I didn't think punishments would work, nor would the lecture about a lifetime of throwing money down the drain, being smelly and unhealthy, which just sounds like an attack to over-sensitive teens.

Instead, I asked him (calmly) to explain to me why he did it; what was he thinking. And he said he felt more secure with a cigarette, that he couldn't imagine partying with friends without one -- he said he was addicted.

I said I'd do everything I could to help him get off them if that's what he wanted, but I wouldn't sanction him smoking. If he's caught, we will deduct the price of a packet of fags from his pocket money. That's the best I can come up with and Norma Cronin of the Irish Cancer Society agrees that there's not much more parents can do.

Effects

"I'd urge parents to focus on the positives of not smoking rather than the negatives of smoking as young people will relate more to that. Research suggests that it is better to concentrate on the short-term effects as children respond better to those issues.

"For example, they worry about their appearance so pointing out that smoking is smelly and bad for the complexion as well as expensive might be more effective."

However, Norma admits that there isn't enough information in schools or enough support to help young people stop.

"The Irish Cancer Society runs the National Quitline and young people can contact us there and we'll put them in touch with a counsellor, however, we don't have a designated facility just for young smokers and there needs to be a more comprehensive anti-smoking programme in schools."

But parents and education are not the only factor influencing young people according to Barry Egan, a psychologist who wrote the Pfizer report.

"Tobacco companies target young people because they need to replace those who have quit or died as a means of sustaining their profits. Evidence suggests that people who don't start smoking before the age of 21 are unlikely to become smokers in later adulthood. However, what starts out as adolescent experimentation often leads to a lifetime of tobacco dependence as you're dealing with a highly addictive product aggressively pushed by the tobacco industry," Mr Egan said.

He also points to research that shows that the younger children are when they start smoking, the less likely they are to stop in the future. Campaigners have long called on the Government to take a proactive stance against the tobacco companies. As a result, advertising at the point of sale is to be banned from July 1 and there are hopes that pictorial warnings on packets will become mandatory.

But, according to ASH Ireland, more should be done to protect children. ASH chairwoman Dr Angie Brown says: "We are campaigning to have smoking banned in cars transporting children under 16.

"There is an abundance of evidence to show that passive smoke can reach very high levels in motor vehicles -- and as children have higher respiratory rates and metabolism than adults, the risks to them are greatly enhanced."

It seems no matter what you do, some children will slip through the net and start a cigarette habit. The role of parents in this case is the same as in any other: to educate, support and, indeed, discipline.

Leverage

My son loves money more than cigarettes so I have no compulsion in using pocket money as leverage. He told me recently that he'd quit. I hope he has, not just for his sake but for the sake of the children he is yet to have. The insidiousness of the addiction can be summed up by a sixth-year lad from Dublin who said: "I'm not really worried that I smoke a lot because I know I can always give them up later when I need to."

National No Smoking Day is on February 25, contact www.ash.ie

National Quitline CallSave 1850 201 203, Monday to Sunday, 8am to 10pm

Allen Carr's Easy Way To Stop Smoking: LoCall 1890 379929