Teens heed advice on smoking

CHICAGO -- Defying the stereotype of the defiant teen-ager, new research suggests teens are much less likely to smoke if they think their parents disapprove of the habit.

Parental disapproval works even if the parents are smokers, and it can also blunt the effect of peer pressure, shown previously to be a strong influence on whether teens take up smoking, the study found.

"We overrate the rebelliousness of teen-agers," said Dr. James Sargent, an associate professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School.

"That works to our disadvantage," he said, because "parents underestimate their influence on their children. They have an overly heightened concern about coming down hard on their kids about things like smoking because they think it's just going to make them more rebellious."

Sargent's study, published in December's issue of Pediatrics, the journal of American Academy of Pediatrics, suggests the opposite is true.

Sargent and researcher Madeline Dalton surveyed 372 rural Vermont youngsters in 1996 in grades four through 11 who had never smoked. They re-questioned them in the following two years about their parents' views on smoking, whether their friends smoked and whether they'd started smoking.

Of those youngsters, 284 initially said their parents disapproved of kids' smoking and 19 percent of them became established smokers by the final survey. By contrast, 41 initially said their parents were lenient about smoking and almost 27 percent of them ended up becoming smokers.

But even among the 113 students with friends who smoked, youngsters whose parents set strong anti-smoking standards were less likely to start smoking than those whose parents were lenient, Sargent said.

Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, said the study echoes similar results found in research on alcohol and illegal drugs. Teens do listen when their parents deliver clear messages, he said.