Your kids are running around the house, demanding that you feed them breakfast. You tell them to wait and take another sip of your coffee. Knowing the routine, the kids decide to flick on their cartoons and settle in for the wait.



On the way by, one of the kids stumbles too close to your cigarette and burns himself. He screams in pain and clutches his arm. You notice a slight welt appear where the cigarette has burned him and you mash the butt out so you can tend to your crying kid. He gives you an accusatory look, as the tears stream down his cute little face.

Picking him up in your arms you say: "Daddy didn't mean it! I'm so sorry."

This is just one of the many mishaps that can happen to a smoker around kids. A cigarette is pretty much a smoking cancer stick, ready to do harm. This very same story has happened to thousands of smokers around the world. They claim it is only an accident-and it is-but it's also a preventable accident.

Even if the kid hadn't been burned, the second hand smoke from a cigarette is still deadly. Why smoke in the house at all? Why not take it outside?

But instead, most smokers will explain away this accident as an aberration, something that won't happen again. Chances are it will happen again.

Smoking is legal, and it is your choice if you want to harm yourself, but most parents love their kids and would do anything to protect them. Yet, when faced with the choice of smoking outside, or inside where the kids are, they will choose inside.

Not only will the kids have to breathe in your second hand smoke, might get burned, but you are choosing to pass on your bad habit to your kids. Studies show that most kids, whose parents smoke, will smoke themselves later in life. It stands to reason that they will. Their parents are their role models, and you are sending the message that it's okay to smoke, and it's okay to do so around their kids.

It's just a little food for thought. The solution seems easy, but the choice is ultimately yours. But take a little time to consider it. Think about the possibility of your little boy or girl crying because you burnt them. Consider the possibility of your kids growing up and smoking themselves, and I'm sure you'll come to the right conclusion.