Vaping is creating a major problem for teens and families. It feels like this year there have been more teens stating that they are vaping and how “cool” it is. It doesn’t matter if your teenager is a star athlete, a brainiac, or just a teen being a teen, every teenager is susceptible to vaping. Vaping provides teens a way of engaging with their peers, appearing cool, and relaxing. Often, teens feel that it helps them feel more relaxed; however, most of them have no idea how much nicotine they are getting into their system until they have a full-blown addiction. Most teens hide it from their parents for months until it becomes such an issue that it’s hard for them to not get caught vaping.
What can you do to prevent this?
The primary preventative is education. Please educate your teen about vaping and how it can lead to nicotine withdrawal when stopped. Explain to them how difficult it is for people to stop smoking, and that vaping causes the same problems. Here are a few of the withdrawal symptoms that teens have mentioned:
- Irritable mood
- Nausea or stomach cramping
- Difficulty falling or staying asleep
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Weight gain
- Headaches
- Intense cravings for nicotine
However, the symptoms don’t stop there; they could also experience tingling in their hands and feet, sweating, coughing, sore throat, and constipation. This can be hard to watch your teen go through. Hopefully by giving them the information ahead of time it will help combat the view of it being just a harmless, cool thing to do.
What if my teen is already addicted to vaping?
I would start off by finding out how quickly are they going through a pod. A Juul pod is equivalent to approximately 20 cigarettes. Teens sometimes report going through a pod in two days, which means they are smoking almost 10 cigarettes a day. As you can imagine, this would be difficult to quit cold turkey. The goal would be to, as a family, come up with some solutions. Some have elected to try and decrease usage over time. For example, trying to make the pod last four days, then trying to make it last seven days, and so on until eventually reaching a point where they no longer need it.
Another option is to stop the teen from vaping and maybe try a nicotine patch or gum to help with treating the nicotine withdrawal. Regardless of what steps you take with your teen, he or she will still have withdrawal symptoms to a certain extent. So involving your son or daughter’s pediatrician is also beneficial.
At Davis-Smith Mental Health, we really push educating yourself on the impacts of vaping. One of the major problems is that teens are educating other teens. They are telling each other that it’s not a big deal, and only recently has there been a different message being put out there through the media. The more you know and ask questions, the better chance you have of preventing your teen from starting, or helping them stop. Taking a punitive approach may not be successful depending on the teen’s personality.
It could also be that your teen was given inaccurate information, so please take the time to support them while being direct in your expectations. For more information on nicotine withdrawal symptoms please read this article: What is Nicotine Withdrawal from WebMD. For more information on vaping, please read the following articles: Vaping: What You Need to Know by KidsHealth and Teen Vaping: What You Need to Know by Children’s Mind Institute. If you have any questions or concerns about your teen vaping please reach out to us at (815) 409-5940.
