Addressing Vaping: How School Counselors Can Help

Student vaping of nicotine and cannabis has surged in our schools, crossing all geographic and demographic lines. With nicotine and cannabis products becoming stronger, more appealing and easier to conceal, they are increasingly addictive and harmful for our youth, causing a rise in medical, cognitive and mental health impacts that often play out on campus. Schools are expending precious time, energy and resources on discipline efforts and liability risks, often in ways that feel ineffective. Shifting this destructive trend will take comprehensive efforts in elementary through high school, and school counselors can serve a powerful role in prevention and early intervention.

Provide Accurate Education

Students are swimming in myths and misinformation on nicotine and cannabis vaping in their communities, social and media worlds and often in their families. We can be trusted sources of evidence-based knowledge on these substances when students are confused, uninformed and don’t know who else to ask. This requires us staying on top of research. For kids to respect our input, ask first what they “know” and if they’re open to our additional information before sharing it.

Question and Challenge Influences

Lead students to identify the messages they are exposed to about vaping and to critique their hypocrisies, inaccuracies and agendas, including the devious marketing tactics used for financial gain at their expense. Help kids strategize thoughts and actions they can use to defy and navigate these forces in their real-world settings while maintaining their confidence and sense of belonging.

Explore Motivations and Fortify Alternatives

Ask students why they believe some kids vape, which will likely yield responses about belonging, confidence, fun or coping with distress. Use this to spark discussion about how they already meet these needs healthily for themselves, identifying any gaps in alternatives, and brainstorm activities or resources to fulfill needs in accessible and effective ways.

For students already vaping, asking “What does vaping give you?” can catalyze a similar discussion. Approach these students with nonjudgmental curiosity, empathizing with the intentions behind their use, before inviting discussion about healthier choices. For example: “You’ve got a lot of stress right now. I can see why you’d keep vaping if you feel like it’s working to relieve that. Are you open to brainstorming other ways of managing your stress, so you don’t get dependent on vaping as the only tool in your toolbox?”

Identifying Values and Goals

The more solid our students are on who they want to be, what they believe in and what they want for themselves, the more likely they are to sift all their decisions through this filter, including choices about vaping. Engage them in clarifying their values and goals and discuss how vaping could conflict with these.

For students who are vaping or considering it, we can guide them to examine how that use is, or could start, conflicting with their values and goals or backfiring on their reasons for using. For example, vaping nicotine to manage stress leads to getting in trouble at school and with parents, damaging serotonin production and creating withdrawals, all of which amplify stress.

Guide Self-Assessment

While it’s outside our scope to diagnose or provide treatment for a student’s nicotine or cannabis use disorder, we can enhance their self-awareness and motivation to want to change their vaping by guiding them to reflect on the ways their use is problematic for them.

Provide Cessation Supports and Referrals

The good news: Surveys show an increasing number of students want to quit vaping. However, the amplifying strength of nicotine and THC products and the stealthy and attractive vaping devices have made for complex and stubborn dependencies, and students need our help. We can refer students to community cessation specialists and groups, advocate for these supports to happen on campus (such as N-O-T by the American Heart Association) and point students toward the growing online and text cessation support programs for teens.

Partner with Parents

Equip parents with the knowledge and tools to prevent and address vaping at home by offering accurate information on the risks of nicotine and THC vaping, skills for discussing vaping as a family and responding to use, and resources for providing their kids with healthy alternatives to vaping.

Start in Early Elementary

Our youngest students witness vaping by the adults around them and see marketing in storefronts and bulletin boards in their communities, and they are developing opinions and decisions about it. They increasing have access to products and devices in their homes. As a result, school counselors nationwide are reporting vaping as young as kindergarten. The sooner we teach kids to critically assess and defy these influences, respect their bodies and act in line with their values, the less likely they are to be drawn to vaping.

Advocate for Evidence-Based Systemic Practices

We can’t do all of the above ourselves. As the campus experts on child psychology and behavior change, school counselors are crucial in advocating for addressing vaping at its roots, using an all-hands-on-deck approach. Our most influential role may be in serving as the research-based inspiration for comprehensive vaping education across all grades, impactful peer-led programming, all-staff training, curricular infusion and alternatives to suspension that funnel resources into holistic, supportive and reparative interventions over punitive ones.

Access all information, resources and tools referenced in this article at Vaping Resources for Educators.

Kriya Lendzion is a school counselor, Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialist, Certified Prevention Specialist and adolescent therapist in Asheville, N.C., who partners with schools as a curriculum designer, drug and alcohol educator, professional development trainer and consultant.