Are your children delinquents?

[Bobsbeer]

A recently released research paper suggests "Early childhood household smoke exposure predicts later delinquency and dropout risk at age 12"  What a load of tosh.

They supposedly followed a bunch of children of smokers and conclude that they are at higher risk of being criminals, thugs and drop outs than children of non smokers.  One thing is certain, is that first, second, third or even fourth hand smoke has nothing to do with any such traits.  It may be lots of things and do harmful things to children's health, but not make them delinquents.  

I grew up in a house where both parents smoked.  They had 4 children.  Three gained university degrees, the other a college qualification, (she was dyslexic, no doubt someone will say that was due to her parents smoking).  I and my wife smoked from the day our son was born.  He went on to university, gained a 2:1 and now has a decent well paid job.  Okay taking up smoking may be a symptom of delinquency.  Of us four siblings I am the only one who took up smoking.  So again that shoots down that hypothesis.  Many of my friends parents smoked.  I don't know any that dropped out or became delinquents.

This research is a piece of total cr ap and tosh, and should never have been published.  How such conclusions could be reached on such flimsy evidence is astonishing.  Even more mind boggling is that the lead researcher, Linda Pagani is a professor.  If I was a professor I would be calling for her to have her professorship removed as quickly as possible before others are tainted by such poor and shoddy work.  I feel sorry for Canadians if this is the level of your education.

[buggritt]

Not agreeing with the research conclusions here, but you're calling it tosh on personal experience of one single family. Against 2,000 used by the study.

[Bobsbeer]

Nov 22, 2016 21:08:18 GMT buggritt said:

Not agreeing with the research conclusions here, but you're calling it tosh on personal experience of one single family. Against 2,000 used by the study.

Not on one family exactly, but mine, my wife's and about a dozen of my friends.  I'm not saying my evidence rules out her conclusions, but I think history would have seen this outcome many years ago.  Let's face it, smoking rates are going down.  They are at near historical lows.  Surely if smoking were to cause the outcome she is suggesting, the world would be full of delinquents.  Yes there are delinquents, but the cause is not smoking.  This woman is a fraud.