According to the USA Office on Smoking and Health, more than 3,000 children become smokers every day. 63 percent of all American high school seniors have tried smoking. Nearly one in five smokes daily.
It is apparent that no matter how many times children are told, a great number of them are going to try smoking anyway. Peer pressure plays an important part. Many children start smoking because their friends have tried it. Smoking may get them in with the "in crowd" and help them to make friends. If they smoke, they will be accepted by their peers.
How to avoid the child to be one of the smokers is a severe problem for the whole society. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, 11 percent of boys and 8.5 percent of girls smoke their first cigarette by fourth grade. Therefore, it is urgent to prevent the children from smoking. Parents have the most influence in this aspect. Children should be informed the harm of smoking in their 3 or 4 years when they are forming values. It is too late to wait until they are teenagers.
Explain to the children that cigarettes cause cancer. Point out the short-term negative effects of tobacco. Children need to know nicotine, an addictive and poisonous alkaloid in cigarettes, makes it difficult to stop. The parents ought to set a good example. If the parent tells the children not to smoke and then light up a cigarette himself, he is sending a mix message to the children. Therefore, he can not educate children well in this way. In a word, the more active the parents are, the greater their chances of success to prevent the children from the bad habit of smoking.

Why should children be educated about the harm of smoking at an early age().