Cyndi Sies
2/17/2009
Monkey—See, Monkey—Do
Sitting at my grandparents’ house, I noticed my younger cousin Savannah roll up a piece of paper and hold it between her to fingers. While sitting at the dinning room table, she would randomly place the roll between her lips as if she were smoking it. This really hit me as to how much children really do pick up from their parents. Picture this: a six-year-old curly-haired blonde “smoking” a piece of pink paper while sitting next to her grandpa that has oxygen tubes taking a breathing treatment.
Parents have much influence and control of what their kids do. They want them to eat healthy, do their chores, and in many cases “do as they say, not as they do”. For example, many parents smoke, but don’t want their children to picking up their nasty habit. Smoking with a child in their car seat, however; not only influences them, it also creates a hazardous environment. Children are to look up to their parents and respect them, but shouldn’t have to put up with mom or dad’s bad habit. Coming next year there will be a law against texting while driving, while this may seem tedious maybe there should also be a law against parents smoking in a vehicle with any children present. Taking into consideration the risk of health problems, terrible influences, and the fact that children don’t have much of a choice; there are good reasons to make a vehicle smoke-free for the youngsters.
As Harvard University researchers report, second-hand smoke in a vehicle is hazardous to children, even with the window slightly rolled down. Keeping this in mind, Richard Carmona (U.S. Surgeon General) states that there is NO safe level of second-hand smoke. Therefore, smoking in a vehicle is in no way healthy for children. Many health problems such as: Lung cancers, pneumonia, bronchitis, arise from constantly inhaling another’s smoke. Also, cigarette smoke contains more than 4,000 chemicals like cyanide, lead and at least 60...