Play's The Thing To Break 2-Year-Old's Smoking Habit
KICKING THE HABIT
Play's The Thing That Breaks 2-Year-Old's Smoking Habit
ARDI RIZAL'S KICKED THE HABIT.
The two-year old Sumatran boy was smoking up to 40 ciggies a day when a video of him sucking on a cancer stick hit the Internet in May.
"I'm not worried about his health, he looks healthy,'' his father Mohammad Rizala said at that time. "He cries and throws tantrums when we don't let him smoke. He's addicted."
The boy's father gave him his first cigarette when he was 18 months old. The Indonesian government stepped in to provide the boy "psychosocial therapy" after a video of him inhaling deeply provoked worldwide outrage.
The antidote to Ardi's addiction? Play. "Therapists kept him busy with activities and encouraged him to play with kids of the same age," said Arist Merdeka Sirait, national commission for child protection secretary-general.
