Every parent naturally wants to provide the best living conditions and life for their children. From ensuring they have as much food and drink as they need, to new clothes and school equipment, books, computer games and sportswear. We all want to ensure their lives are filled with fun and happiness and that they’re kept away from harm.

From an educational perspective, we want to ensure our children are given the best possible start in life. We want them to have access to resources that will encourage them to learn new things and skills that will stay with them for life, helping them to go on to forge highly successful careers in their chosen industries. Whether that means taking an apprenticeship or going on to University the decision is theirs and it’s often based on their upbringing.

The same can be said about their health and overall well-being. When it comes to looking after children we’re all very good at pointing out when they look unwell and need to go to bed having taken some medicine and that maybe just this once they can have the day off school (and, yes, a bowl of ice cream that magically makes them feel better!)

However, many parents don’t understand just how important it is to ensure that our children are aware of the risks associated with certain behaviours they learn from us and those around them – A prime example here is drinking alcohol, such as having a beer or two at the weekend. Children are inquisitive and will likely want to try whatever it is that mummy and daddy are drinking. There is research to suggest a slow exposure to things like alcohol can be helpful down the line, but can the same be said about smoking and vaping?

While parents may now be ditching the traditional cigarettes in favour of the e-cigs and e-liquids that are believed to be far safer in terms of their content; it’s still something children could see us doing and want to copy in future. The sweet flavoured scents of the e-liquids could be misleading and lead them to believe it’s like candy, which could result in disaster. If they hide it away from you and try it at school, they could easily be picked up by vape detectors and get into trouble.

Electronic cigarettes are here to stay and, like most technologies, the number of people investing in them is increasing. As such, children are now gaining more and more exposure to them making it imperative that we educate them at the earliest opportunity about the risks to their health, how the devices work and so on.

We have a responsibility to keep our e-cigs & e-liquid flavours away from children to prevent them from “playing” with them or consuming them and, just like in school, the earlier this process can start the better – especially if you wish to continue vaping as your children grow up.

The more exposure they have to e-cigarettes and people vaping, the chances are they will make their own minds up about the uptake of vaping. They may decide that they hate it and steer clear. They may see them as something that never did their parents any harm so they’re going to give it a try themselves. Therefore, the very least we can do is educate them about the risks.