East Tennessee woman charged with forcing 5-year-old son to smoke a cigarette

While I have never used this aproach nor would I, I totaly understand where this woman is comming from. I just got into a big argument with some people I work with and it surprises me, so I thought I would throw it out to my ATS friends and see what you think. www.freerepublic.com...

Sounds like solid parenting!

Reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Bart starts stashing cigarettes for the mob and Homer tells him to smoke them all as punishment.

Yea I think she should have not done it in public, but I have read that alot of people's parents have done it. Maybe not at that age but it seems to work for most I have heard about, including my own.

I love the responses below the article:

Here's the beer drinking lesson...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/333f35507c61.png[/atsimg]

and

Thankfully she wasn’t teaching him to not have sex.

I have just driven through this area on a return trip from Florida.

A gentle euphemism for the area would be....'white trash'.

When my oldest sister was 15, my parents busted her with a pack of smokes and made her smoke the entire pack in front of them in the kitchen. The only thing it taught her was to hide her cigarettes better. Saying that though, I'm not sure how I feel about this issue. The kid was only 5. To me, I think it's a bit harsh to make a 5 year old smoke a cigarette. I suppose though it could have been worse, she could have been teaching him not to smoke pot since they say they found that in the car. Then again, did the pot belong to her, or were they trying to rack up a more serious charge? It's a crazy world we live in.

Thanks for the post OP.

ET fix grammar

[edit on 12-5-2010 by sugarmonkey]

I too think this was a bad idea.
First he's only 5, it's not as if he would spontaneously start smoking behind her back - hopefully. Even if he'd decided to try and smoke to mimic an adult, wouldn't mean he's at risk of starting smoking himself. He's not at risk yet, and he'll probably take it as a senseless punishment.
Then, how much do you remember from when you were five? Is it really going to stop him from trying again at 12? I highly doubt it.
But then again, I find the arrest is exaggerated too.

sometimes I'm ashamed to be white. this is one of those times.

and people wonder why I support the NWO

When I was growing up that's what a lot of parents did if they caught their kids smoking, although not at that age.

My uncle was a long haul driver and I remember once he called home and my Aunt told him that my cousin was smoking, he came home with a bunch of tobacco leaves rolled them up and made my cousin sit there and smoke in front of all of us. LOL I swear i think my cousin turned three shades of green before he ran off to the bathroom to puke

It doesn't say why she was teaching him not to smoke though. Did she find him trying to smoke or what. I do think that he was too young for her to have done that to him though.