Episode 54: Youth and Vaping – What Parents Can Do

A recent article in our local newspaper reported that about 800 students were referred to the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) for vaping offences in 2022, a 16-fold increase from 2019, and this seems to be an underestimate.

Another report suggested that up to 40 percent of residents in our universities’ halls are using vaporisers, or vapes for short.

This is worrying, given that vaping can cause damage to the heart, brain and especially the lungs. In fact, EVALI, E-V-A-L-I, which is short for e-cigarette, or vaping, product use associated lung injury, is a serious lung condition that is caused by vaping. It causes widespread damage to our lungs and gives rise to symptoms like coughing, shortness of breath and chest pain. In some cases, EVALI can even be fatal.

What can we parents do to help our children avoid this harmful practice?

Heart of the Matter

For a start, we need to know why such a significant number of our young turn to vaping in the first place.

For one, psychologists and counsellors suggest that peer pressure may be contributing to vaping’s popularity among the young. Secondly, extensive social media marketing seems to have been quite successful in promoting the use of vapes to our young.

As we know, our young can be particularly vulnerable in the area of self-esteem. Besides knowing what is good and what is not, they need to have a good sense of self-worth to overcome the immense pressures they may face in the contemporary culture.

It seems to me there are three points we may want to work on as parents.

First, their strength of character. They need the virtues of temperance, fortitude (or courage) and prudence to know and stand for what is right and fend off negative peer pressure. We have covered these in earlier episodes, linked below.

Second, our children need to know they are good. Their bodies are good. In fact, very good. They ought to find every reason to want to fill their bodies with what is good and avoid what can cause harm – physically, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually. How? We need to affirm them of their beauty and goodness as God has made them. We need to communicate our unconditional love for them.

Loving Connection

We need to be there for them, we need to be emotionally engaged with them, to be responsive to their needs, to their feelings, and provide them a safe space where they can always feel comfortable talking to us, even about difficult topics. What makes them feel good about themselves? What bugs them? Is there any situation that makes them feel vulnerable?

Of course, how we connect with them varies according to their age group and their personalities, whether it is a little bedtime talk before tucking them into bed at night, or spending time at McDonald’s, or their favourite ice cream parlour, or at a cafe chatting over coffee or frappe, or just having a walk by the beach.

Once again, these have been covered in earlier episodes, namely episodes 7 to 17 of this series. We also share below an interview we had with Dr Christopher Cheok on substance abuse. Dr Cheok is a senior consultant and head with the Department of Forensic Psychiatry at the Institute of Mental Health.

Finally, pray for our children always. Often it is a spiritual battle that we are fighting for the bodies and souls of our children. No matter how pessimistic our situation may be, let us never cease praying for them and entrusting them to the care of our Lord and Blessed Mother and St Joseph. Jesus is our Lord and Saviour. He knows what needs to be done.