Parents who can’t kick the smoking habit themselves can nevertheless convince their children not to start, a new study shows.

Researchers found that a program aimed at helping parents talk with their kids about smoking lowered the likelihood that children would try cigarettes by the 6th grade. All of the parents were smokers themselves.

Past studies have shown that the children of smokers are at high risk of taking up the habit, which makes it “critical” to help these parents address the topic with their kids, according to Dr. Christine Jackson, a senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research Chapel Hill Center in North Carolina.

Many parents who smoke, she told Reuters Health, may be reluctant to have such discussions because they feel guilty about their smoking or believe they’d seem “hypocritical” to their children.

But parents who speak from the experience of becoming addicted to nicotine may in fact have more credibility, Jackson pointed out. “They absolutely hate the fact that they smoke,” she said. “They can be incredibly persuasive.”

However, keeping kids from smoking may take much more than simply telling them not to do it - the tactic many parents rely on.

The new study, published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, looked at the effects of a program that helped smoking parents learn “anti-smoking socialization.”

The researchers randomly assigned 776 families to one of two groups: a program group where parents periodically received written materials to help them discuss smoking with their children; or a comparison group where parents received only short fact sheets on smoking.

Parents in the program used the materials to help them talk with their children about their own history with smoking and what it means to be addicted, among other topics.

They were also encouraged to take small, everyday measures to dispel the image that smoking is normal - like not leaving dirty ashtrays in the house and not asking their kids to bring them their pack of cigarettes.

Three years later, the study found, 12 percent of children in the program group said they had tried smoking, versus 19 percent in the comparison group.

The findings show that, with the right tools, parents who smoke can discourage their kids from doing the same, according to the researchers. Yet, Jackson said, the role of these parents in smoking prevention efforts has until now been largely ignored.

“But parents who smoke are critical,” she said, “because it’s their children who are most likely to smoke.”

SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, January 2006.