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My brother started vaping???

So apparently my younger brother has started vaping. He is 16 and has been hanging around with what I would call “the wrong crowd” for quite some time. They all went out today to supposedly go to the village fair (after he ditched me about twenty minutes before we were meant to leave to go together) but he came back about six hours later and said they’d just been at his mate’s house drinking, and that he had been vaping a fair bit. I was very surprised to hear this as he has always been a very shy and nerdy guy who would never in a million years be into that sort of thing, and now I guess I’m wondering what happened to that innocent kid who used to love playing with Hot Wheels (I always feel guilty for blowing him off and not hanging out with him more when we were kids because I feel like it has contributed to our admittedly poor relationship).

My parents, who were very strict bringing me up and are still somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of me going and out and drinking despite me being almost 19, seem to be pretty okay with his behaviour. They’re both ex-smokers so it’s not like they’re not aware of the dangers - they brought my brother and I up in a very sheltered lifestyle to rectify their mistakes I guess, and I will admit that I can be prudish and judgemental because of my upbringing and lack of exposure to the real world. I’m also not saying that I want my brother to stop hanging out with his mates or stop drinking or anything, because that is a perfectly normal thing to do at his age, but I am worried about the vaping because he is already a very unhealthy person who spends 16-20 hours a day just on sleeping and sitting in front of his Xbox.

He’s also been taking an online science course that is going to run over and overlap with the first three days of school, and my parents are seemingly fine with him missing all of this despite it being his final year of high school… I don’t know, I guess I just feel the weight of the double standards in my house, after they were so harsh on me for years, taking away my laptop when I was three days away from winning last year’s NaNoWriMo challenge just because we had a small fight, but buying him new video games and expensive clothes even when he didn’t meet the grades they said they’d reward him for… getting grumpy at me for making a last minute plan to grab dinner with a friend but allowing him to eat in his room every night for the last two years whilst I sit with them in the kitchen… excessively pressurising me to do well in school and juggle a hundred extracurriculars, and pushing me to go to them every single week even when I was unwell because they’d already paid for the lessons, but paying a fortune for judo lessons for him and then allowing him to quit after one week even after he’d begged to go in the first place… I sound super bitter I know, but all the little things build up over time and I could honestly go on for weeks about all these times where he gets it way easier than me, and when I complain? I’m told I’m being argumentative.

Anywayyyy - advice on what to do about the vaping, or just how to deal with this situation in general? I obviously can’t control his life and I don’t want to, but I’d really hate for him to waste his potential - he has already thrown away the opportunity to be a prefect this year, he didn’t revise for his exams well enough and now didn’t get the grades he wanted to apply for Cambridge, and countless other things that just make me so sad to see. My parents think I’m trying to cause a fight, compare the two of us, or be meddlesome, but in all honesty I really do just want the best for him… so any help is much appreciated. Thank you kindly.
Parents are usually the strictest with their oldest child and let the younger ones do whatever they want.
Have you talked to him about his habits?

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