Education is the key to protecting children against smoking: What parents think and do

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.