Madonna caught daughter Lourdes Leon smoking, vows to be tougher mother

LA: Madonna has vowed to toughen up as a mother after seeing pictures of her daughter Lourdes Leon smoking a cigarette.

The 15-year-old was caught lighting up while she loitered around with male friends in New York last month. The legal age for smoking in America is 18.

When asked how she reacted, Madonna, 53, admitted she 'wasn't very happy.'

While she considers herself a disciplinarian, she has decided to come down harder on her children.

'I'm probably not as tough as I should be,' she tells the Today show. 'I think I need to be maybe tougher.'

'Every day is a negotiation, but cigarette smoking I'm not very fond of,' she added. Madonna, who does not smoke, puffs on a cigarette in her recent video for Girl Gone Bad.

She said it was 'was just a prop' and it didn't set a bad example, saying '[Lourdes] doesn't get that from me'. But she admits parenting is a challenge.

'To be a single mother of four and to work as much as I do, with my life in a kind of metaphorical fish bowl, it's pretty challenging. But so far I've survived with sanity and humour intact.'