TalkBack - Would you report your child for vaping?

thing is about helping them recover. Because, yeah, we know that vaping can harm you in a variety of ways. It could impact your heart, your brain, your lungs, your general health, so that's not good for you. So I think if you're a child and you are vaping, And, uh, your parents want to look after you and take care of you and your well-being, mental and physical well-being, and they can't do anything about your vaping because they've

tried and tried and tried, report, report, report, report. I would think also in those cases, ah, the kid or the teenager is also happily vaping at home. In the family household because that's where it's the safest to do it, right? So also maybe mom and dad are like, you know, I've told you 10,000 times, you need to stop this. Why not? But it's a very tricky thing, man. Like, why is it tricky a family rather handle it.

Within the family. 100%. You, you try and solve it in-house, but if you can't get anywhere with your child who is a bit rebellious and you know that you need to do a whole lot more, then bring other people involved. Bring people outside, bring the authorities involved because You need to get your child back on that straight

and narrow and look after his or her health. Let's hear from Minister of State for Health Rahayu Mahzam on the um clarification in terms of, you know, if you were to report your child and the finding.

where we will need to continue addressing. What I would advise parents if they are facing a situation where they suspect that children are vaping, please use the HPB hotline to get them some help and appropriate support will be given to the children.

And for those situations where there is an aberration and the matter is reported to the police, please let us know if there's some difficulties as mentioned in my earlier answer, it was only one case that we are aware of where the parent reported to the police, and in that case,

a warning was issued instead. So perhaps if members are aware of certain circumstances where the parents have approached the police instead and some fines are issued, you could highlight that case to us because indeed what we want to do is to have a nuanced approach where we are supportive of parents who want to help their children cease vaping.

go to our guest joining us, Lydia. Hello, Lydia. Hi, Harry. Nice to be on the show again. Good to talk to you, especially after that budget roundup that we did as well. I'm curious, this one is really right up your alley because as a parent, as well as a psychologist, we want to get two sides of it. Ah A report or not, right. Yeah, that's the question. Yeah. Well,

I think the issue is a lot deeper. Um, you know, I'm very appreciative that, um, you know, as the minister said that they're trying to, to, to raise barriers for parents to come out, you know, for support. Um, but at the same time, the deeper underlying conversation here is really the sacred relationship between parent and child that deals with the trust bonds that deals with.

Um, that that level of significance influence, um, you know, that, that takes place and what technically happens when parent just raises the bar and go straight out to the police, uh, on a situation. Yes, it could be really difficult, but the question is what does that do to the trust bond between parent and child? Is that a significant.

permanent impact, what the child then perhaps instead of understanding the help that the parent was reaching out for, you know, be even more, um, you know, desperately need to be secretive because you know that line between privacy and you know, external authority.

Uh, kind of starts disappearing with that first report. So I guess the reality really is what my, my question often is what more can parents do at home, uh, that you guys were discussing earlier to help children understand, you know, the real detriments or or harm that comes with smoking or vaping for that matter. You know, this is part of tough love, isn't it?

So if, if, if the parents are struggling with a child that's a bit rebellious and wants to continue vaping, for example, this is more or less an intervention because you're trying to help the child, you know, and, and you want to, actually, you're looking after and, and you're showing more love this way instead of letting the child just do whatever he or she wants. So, so it's important to intervene, I reckon.

Well, OK, let, let me propose a slightly shift in lens, because when we say tough love, we often think about something, uh, measures that are somewhat, you know, more aggressive, stronger, a little bit more definitive. But the reality often is, perhaps I feel in the work that I do, um, you know, um, it's a misunderstanding.

that stronger personalities require stronger measures, and sometimes stronger personalities just need to deeply understand why no is the answer for some things and why yes is the better answer for other things. And if they are drawn into a mutually respectful conversation, and yes, I do mean even very young children, um, you know, the, and the choice is always in their hands, but, uh, you know, by the way, I'm not saying being indulgent.

It means giving the child the information and knowledge to make important decisions from the smallest ones, like what shoes to wear so they don't hurt their feet if they're going out to the beach, for instance, uh, to more important ones where if I'm really stressed, would going out with my friends and like, you know, taking alcohol under age or smoking and vaping when I'm not supposed to, is that really a better option or is it a short term solution?

to a much bigger problem in the future. And I think these are some conversations that I feel parents who are very busy working may not have the handles, much less the insight to know how to engage children. I mean, because isn't the way the cigarette and haven't been talking about smokingmemorial? I remember like my, my secondary school, I don't know whether it was. Legit or not, but my principal would conduct random breathalyzer

tests on the students on the scenes. I thought they just checked the bags the breathalyzer over the PA system, a few names would be announced and these names will report to them occasionally, but this is an age old problem, isn't it? It's not really new. It's just evolved and the chemicals that are being consumed. literally inhaled it far scarier. I mean, that's direct brain damage. But what I mean is like the parents have had this discussion before. Don't let me catch you with this.

Don't do it. It's bad for your health. You should not be doing it. I don't want you to, you know, these conversations have been happening. Yes. So, so let me push this conversation a little bit more because clearly, if this is HO conversations, these methods, are they working?

And if they're working for how long, maybe when the parents are no longer in the picture, so my, my proposal actually is to first of all encourage parents to know their children's personality and if they are the sort that doesn't that plays hardball very well, hardball approaches tend to create an instinctive need to push back. If not now,

maybe in the future. And so I. Worked with kids who are stronger willed who fight for their freedom to choose a lot more when they're engaged at a level where they're given information, they're led to see the real repercussions that they're choosing to enter into. I have seen kids who could end up making very bad decisions actually choose the right ones for themselves because nobody's pressing.

Them too. So just saying, stop it, or else, or don't let me catch you become trigger engagements for the ring to do it. You want me to do it. So OK, I've got a creative response from one of our listeners here just to interject, um, because the main question we're asking our listeners, would you report your child

for vaping? Because as has been mentioned, The child reported by the parent would not be fined because there is a fine for vaping in public, but hopefully this would, the point is help them avail themselves of help, right? At the end of the day. Um, a listener what's up to cross and says, going to your point earlier on the day where you said, you know, what this create a permanent barrier or boundary between parent and child, right? How could you have done this to me?

How could you report to me? This person says, hi, I will not report, but I'll have someone else be the snitch. Um, I will then help the child manage the consequence instead of firefighting. Growing problem. Why can't we just enforce that this is an illegal item to some and and something akin to as illegal and dangerous as drugs? Yeah, go along those lines. Cigarettes was never illegal. That's the problem. Well, yeah, yeah. I think that's a very creative way to go around

preserving the parent-child trust. But and OK, seeing this from the surface of what the government is trying to do, um, the, the positive way forward I feel is once these kids are reported, these young people are reported. I'm actually more curious about the follow up, uh, support rather than just a warning or a fine. It's how can we create social support for young people to come together to have conversations, guided conversations to kind of lead them to the right choices.

Yawned that this is right or wrong, you better not or else. Those kind of conversations in my, in my line of work over the last few decades, I found sometimes, unfortunately, very counterproductive. So I've met young people, delinquents, who make choices in their life, and upon reflection, go, Actually, I'm not pleased with the decisions I've made. But I found myself needing to do it, because that's the only way I felt like I was in control.

And so thematically from that perspective of youth and children engagement, I've also found parents who have been creative and for example, went to brush their teeth or what happens when you take a cigarette, and they show very explicit photos, not in a threatening way, in a biological informative kind of way, that this is what's happening to your lungs, this is what's gonna, you're basically inhaling stuff that's going to kill you, even as you're maybe.

Trying to survive from stress, for example. And so, so there may be a huge myriad of reasons why young people do what they do. It could be peer pressure, it could be looking cool, it could really be they feel calmer when they when they smoke. I mean, any reasons they say could be valid to them, no matter how much we reneg negate it. So the the reality for me with with what the government is doing, my point of curiosity is, can we go a little bit further.

How can we build social communities to tend to those who are reported, and also how do we engage and reach out to those who we know are vaping, but have not been reported and maybe can go through the same social conversations and support so that they don't ever have to be reported. That that's really where I'm interested in going. Yeah. Lydia, you are a mother of two teenagers, 16-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old son.

They're at that sweet spot, you know, they, they, they still are about to head off to junior colleges or polytechnics and then on to Uh, maybe, uh, institutes of higher learning beyond that. Uh, are you at all concerned that once they are out of your sort of reach, because they're gonna be mixing around with other people, they're not gonna be, uh, sort

of handling school time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so because of that, would you be telling them now that these things that you could be seeing or experiencing with friends of yours, vaping and all that, to not Fall into that trap. So you're giving them the material now, the skills to sort of fend for themselves, to look after themselves, to prevent something like vaping from happening? Well, definitely.

I mean that I don't know of any parents who wouldn't worry, especially if the day comes nearer that the child is gonna, your child's gonna leave your side literally and have a schedule of their own and you don't see them. Um, but I, I, I, what I would say though is that I would encourage parents and I guess somewhat of an occupational it because this is the line of work I do.

To start a lot earlier than teenage, so I embarked on the journey of being very informative to my children from very young, uh, to inculcate um habits that benefit them and even to let them, you know, test waters and cross boundaries in simpler, uh, smaller, you know, kind of contraband issues so that they get a taste of natural negative, uh, you know, reactions. So they know what it means.

To make better decisions for themselves. So for example, like, a lot of parents are something that a lot simpler than vaping, right? Let's say, eating snacks that's not healthy. So what I did really was when my child, my, my daughter was like, you know, basically had lots of noble nosebleeds. She loves her chocolate. But every time she, so every time she takes chocolate, she gets an immediate nose bleed. And so we, I would always, instead of saying,

you know, child, you cannot have chocolate, full stop. Otherwise, I will implement these such punishments. I chose to use what we, what I would call a natural consequence, where I left it to her decide, chocolate, no chocolate. She ate it, and that cost her her say Saturday afternoon swim in the pool, because nobody's going

to want a nose bleeding child in the pool. And so by virtue of pure logic and consequence and consideration, uh, thinking of herself if she was the other party, she suffered the natural consequence of what it means not to, you know, it. That's a, that's a sensible choice. Sensibility tends to go out the window when friends are involved, and I want to talk about the friend pressure when we return in the next segment. We'll be back on talk back, learning

more about this issue and how you would respond. One of our listeners, um, uh, what's actually you texted SMS. I worried that it will cost you money, so send WhatsApp will be cheaper, um, and somebody says, you know what, the parents are also raping. Maybe that's a problem. Uh, and then goes on to say, why are cigarettes not banned? That is a discussion for another day. Indeed, Lydia, we're gonna wrap it up there. It was great talking to you again. Come back again, please. Thanks for having me.

Lydia Lim's a mom of two teenagers and peak psychologist, management consultant with Research Communication International and chief psychologist and co-founder of Getected.sg.