For many young people, some of the main obstacles they’ll face in life are in their heads.  A lack of self belief, or a belief that they are so gifted and clever, they don’t have to try.

As parents, we need to think carefully about our language, as some of those obstacles are placed in their heads by our own well meaning.

When we speak, are we giving well thought through guidance, or just our opinions?

​Pause, think, edit………….perhaps speak.

Professor Cecilie Svanes of University of Bergen, Norway has published research, which was presented to the European Respiratory Society in Munich.

It shows that men who smoke in their teens stand a more than 50% chance of having children with non-allergic Asthma (that excluding Hay ever).  If they smoked before age 15, this could be as high as 60%.  This is only reduced if the men give up more than 5 years before conceiving.

The study covered 13000 men and women in total and the women’s habits were not implicated.
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I believe this result was not expected.