should parents who smoke around their kids be classed as child abuse?

I think so. I mean, they are starting to do it to parent's who's children are obese...calling it child abuse. I used to smoke til about a year & a half ago (yippie for me!!) but I never ever smoked around my children. I would brave the Pittsburgh winter & go outside to smoke. Smoking was not allowed in my home or in my car & we never sat in the smoking section of a resturaunt...even though I was a smoker of a pack a day. My husband still smokes but he also still goes outside. There isn't a single soul alive that does not know the risks of 1st hand and second hand smoke. They just don't care- parents who smoke with their children breathing it in are generally self centered and pretend there is nothing wrong with it so they can sleep easy at night. That whole: it's my kid - I'll do what I want. Like they own them or something....

This could be a huge can of worms opened.I used to be a smoker many yrs. ago. Butever sicne I was pregnant,I NEVER went anywhere aroiund smoke.When my son was born,I never subjected him to any second hand smoke.He was never around smoke until he was 4.I was divorced and his idiot dad started smoking. My son NEVER was sick the entire first 4 years of his life AT ALL,but as soon as he had to go visit his dad,he was sick all the time.He still HATES the stink and he is now 11.

I think the goverment is already trying too much to control everyone's lives. I don't think a person should be classified as a child abuser just for smoking. But I think that parents should be willing to give it up for their children. I have health problems that were caused from my dad smoking. My husband knew before we ever even got married that he would not be smoking at all if we were to have children. He quit before we got married. Our children's heath was more important to him than smoking was. Parents know they are exposing their children to those toxins. I would like to think that parents would quit to protect their children, but we know that isn't always the case. However, there are far worse things that parents do to their children everyday. We need to focus on punishing the parents who physically assault their children everyday.

Yes, it's true, a pregnant woman who smokes puts her own child's health at risk, but I don't think you can consider her as a criminal. You can say that she pays only a little of attention to her baby, but considering her as a person who practices the child abuse is too exaggerated. I think that after the birth of her child, she will be a good mother, I hope only that she will never smoke in the presence of her child.

I think so yes. A woman knows that if she smokes whilst pregnant that she is harming her un born child. Its the same when parents smoke around young children, they know the harm smoking does. If however, a parent is genuinly unaware that there second hand smoke is harming their children then this is different. In these cases the parents should be educated about the risks and if they continue to smoke even though they know the facts and harm its doing then that, for me, counts as child abuse. This is a very interesting topic sangita999, well done.

i do think so..they r not only putting at risk but results to abnormal baby birth or baby with congenital deformity.so they should be put in presion.

good discussion , I have asthma caused by secondary smoking , My dad used to smoke and my hubby used to smoke but I do know if they had known it was going to cause me to have asthma they would have given up a lot earlier , They have both given up over 17 years ago , xx

I dont know, to me this just seems like political correctness runamuk. You want to jail parrents for smoking around their kids, letting their kids eat to much, spanking their kids. All of these just seen wrong to me. Since when did government have this much control over how we live our lives. I agree when there is real child abuse somebody should step in, but this is just pushing things to far just because the press says something is bad.

You raise an interesting question. Certainly, they are putting their unborn or growing children at risk for asthma and other diseases by smoking around them too much. Second hand smoke is as dangerous as if the other person was smoking themselves. The problem with punishing the parents is that there are so many people who do it, it would be hard to prosecute them. What would happen to all their children? Foster care is already over burdened. The best thing to do is to continue educating people about the dangers of smoking.