Do Parental Practices in Childhood Moderate the Association Between Parental Drinking and Adolescent Drinking Trajectories? A 15-Year Nationally Representative Longitudinal Study.

OBJECTIVE

We examined parenting practices and attitudes of parental warmth, harsh parenting, consistency of discipline, and parent self-efficacy in childhood as moderators of the associations between parental drinking in childhood and alcohol use from ages 12 to 19. We also explored whether these moderation effects would differ for boys and girls.

METHOD: Data were drawn from the first eight waves of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). LSAC participants were ages 4/5 in wave one (N = 4983, Mage = 4.17, SD = 0.38, 51% boys) and 18/19 in wave eight (Mage = 18.42, SD = 0.50). Parents reported their parenting practices and alcohol use from waves one to five. Adolescents reported their alcohol use from waves five to eight. Data analyses used SEM and Latent Growth Curve Models (LGCM) in R.

RESULTS

Results supported protective roles of high levels of both consistency of discipline and parent self-efficacy during a child's life course for alcohol use in adolescence. Harsher parenting in childhood was a significant risk for drinking initiation and continuation from ages 12 to 19 at higher parental drinking levels in childhood.

CONCLUSION

These results have theoretical and practical implications. They suggest developmental mechanisms of specific parenting practices and attitudes that can be targeted in preventive and treatment programs for adolescent drinking. This includes parenting support for parents who report high alcohol use for themselves while parenting children under 12 years.