The role of parental alcohol-specific communication in early adolescents' alcohol use.

Many alcohol prevention programs advocate conversations about alcohol between parents and children because verbal communication is the most direct way for parents to express their thoughts, rules, and concerns about alcohol to their children, so called alcohol-specific communication. Nevertheless, research on the effects of alcohol-specific communication has produced inconsistent findings. This study examined the bidirectional links between frequency of alcohol-specific communication and early adolescents' alcohol use, and the moderating effects on these links of gender and experience with alcohol. The longitudinal sample consisted of 428 Dutch early adolescents who were followed over 3 years. Results of structural equation models indicated that more frequent alcohol-specific communication at time two predicted more adolescent alcohol use at time three. Follow-up multiple-group analyses clearly show that prospective links between alcohol-specific communication and adolescent alcohol use were limited to adolescent males reporting the highest levels of drinking. For this group of drinking males, alcohol use predicted less parent-child communication, and more frequency of alcohol-specific communication predicted an increase in drinking. Alcohol-specific communication and adolescent alcohol use were not prospectively linked for males reporting lower levels of alcohol use or for adolescent females. These findings highlight the need for future research that examines both quantitative and qualitative aspects of how parents communicate with their adolescent children about alcohol. Advocation of specific parent-child communication skills meant to reduce youth alcohol use may be somewhat premature until additional studies refine our understanding of how specific parenting strategies are linked to different patterns of adolescent alcohol use.

[1]  R. Fivush,et al.  Gender differences in parent-child conversations about past emotions , 1992 .

[2]  R. Engels,et al.  Alcohol use and intimate relationships in adolescence: when love comes to town. , 2000, Addictive behaviors.

[3]  E. Robertson,et al.  Preventing Drug Use among Children and Adolescents: A Research-Based Guide for Parents, Educators, and Community Leaders. Second Edition. , 1997 .

[4]  D. Baumrind.  New directions in socialization research. , 1980 .

[5]  J. Buitelaar,et al.  Parental problem drinking, parenting, and adolescent alcohol use , 2008, Journal of Behavioral Medicine.

[6]  G. Gmel,et al.  Investigating Gender Convergence in Alcohol Consumption in Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, and Switzerland: A Repeated Survey Analysis , 2001, Substance abuse.

[7]  Karl E. Bauman,et al.  Parent‐Child Communication About Adolescent Tobacco and Alcohol Use: What Do Parents Say and Does It Affect Youth Behavior? , 2001 .

[8]  H. Bosma,et al.  Adolescents' perceptions of communication with parents relative to specific aspects of relationships with parents and personal development. , 1998, Journal of adolescence.

[9]  H. de Vries,et al.  Parental rules and communication: their association with adolescent smoking. , 2005, Addiction.

[10]  Melanie Booth-Butterfield,et al.  The influence of family communication on the college‐aged child: Openness, attitudes and actions about sex and alcohol , 1998 .

[11]  Dianne Neumark-Sztainer,et al.  Parent-child connectedness and behavioral and emotional health among adolescents. , 2006, American journal of preventive medicine.

[12]  Barbro Andersson,et al.  The 1999 ESPAD report: alcohol and other drug use among students in 30 European countries. , 1997 .

[13]  P. van Schaik,et al.  A review of parental involvement in sex education: The role for effective communication in British families , 2008 .

[14]  Michelle Miller-Day.  Talking to Youth about Drugs: What Do Late Adolescents Say about Parental Strategies?. , 2008 .

[15]  R. Engels,et al.  Why Do Late Adolescents Drink at Home? A Study on Psychological Well-Being, Social Integration and Drinking Context , 1999 .

[16]  Tom Hollenstein,et al.  Dynamic systems methods for models of developmental psychopathology , 2003, Development and Psychopathology.

[17]  R. Engels,et al.  Correspondence between proxy and self-reports on smoking in a full family study. , 2006, Drug and alcohol dependence.

[18]  L. Henriksen,et al.  Alcohol-specific socialization, parenting behaviors and alcohol use by children. , 1999, Journal of studies on alcohol.

[19]  E. S. Lefkowitz,et al.  Mother-Adolescent Health Communication: Are All Conversations Created Equally? , 2007 .

[20]  R. Engels,et al.  Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology Identification and Prediction of Drinking Trajectories in Early and Mid-adolescence , 2022 .

[21]  Eric Stice,et al.  A Longitudinal Examination of the Reciprocal Relations Between Perceived Parenting and Adolescents' Substance Use and Externalizing Behaviors , 1995 .

[22]  B. McCrady,et al.  Problem drinking from young adulthood to adulthood: patterns, predictors and outcomes. , 1999, Journal of studies on alcohol.

[23]  R. Wiers,et al.  Prevention of Alcohol Problems in Dutch Youth , 2008, Evaluation & the health professions.

[24]  M. Morgan,et al.  The ESPAD Report 2003 , 2004 .

[25]  R. Engels,et al.  Inconsistencies in adolescents' self-reports of initiation of alcohol and tobacco use. , 1997, Addictive behaviors.

[26]  M. Sigman,et al.  He Said, She Said: Gender Differences in Mother – Adolescent Conversations about Sexuality , 2002 .

[27]  Howard L. Barnes,et al.  Parent-Adolescent Communication and the Circumplex Model. , 1985 .

[28]  K. Pasch,et al.  Outcomes from a randomized controlled trial of a multi-component alcohol use preventive intervention for urban youth: project northland Chicago. , 2008, Addiction.

[29]  Michelle Miller-Day,et al.  Parent-Adolescent Communication about Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Druguse , 2002 .

[30]  R. Engels,et al.  Parental attachment, parental control, and early development of alcohol use: a longitudinal study. , 2006, Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors.

[31]  M. Choquet,et al.  Culture as an explanation for substance-related problems: a cross-national study among French and Dutch adolescents. , 2007, Social science & medicine.

[32]  L Nadeau,et al.  Gender differences in alcohol consumption and adverse drinking consequences: cross-cultural patterns. , 2000, Addiction.

[33]  R. van den Eijnden,et al.  Socioeconomic Differences in Alcohol-Specific Parenting Practices and Adolescents’ Drinking Patterns , 2008, European Addiction Research.

[34]  M. Comello,et al.  Parent-child communication, perceived sanctions against drug use, and youth drug involvement. , 2002, Adolescence.

[35]  J. Smetana,et al.  Family Processes and Problem Behaviors in Middle-Class African American Adolescents. , 2002 .

[36]  R. Conger,et al.  Assessing the Benefits of a Parenting Skills Training Program: A Theoretical Approach to Predicting Direct and Moderating Effects. , 1999 .

[37]  Victor J. Callan,et al.  Adolescents' perceptions of the nature of their communication with parents , 1990, Journal of youth and adolescence.

[38]  R. Engels,et al.  Family factors and adolescents' alcohol use: A reply to Chassin and Handley (2006) and Fromme (2006). , 2006 .

[39]  R. Engels,et al.  Alcohol-specific rules, personality and adolescents' alcohol use: a longitudinal person-environment study. , 2007, Addiction.

[40]  R. Engels,et al.  The role of alcohol-specific socialization in adolescents' drinking behaviour. , 2005, Addiction.

[41]  A. Satorra,et al.  A scaled difference chi-square test statistic for moment structure analysis , 1999 .

[42]  Lori S. Anderson,et al.  Parent-child communication processes: preventing children's health-risk behavior. , 2006, Journal for specialists in pediatric nursing : JSPN.

[43]  C. Leaper,et al.  Moderators of gender effects on parents' talk to their children: a meta-analysis. , 1998, Developmental psychology.

[44]  R. Q. Bell.  A reinterpretation of the direction of effects in studies of socialization. , 1968, Psychological review.

[45]  R. Engels,et al.  Parental Smoking-specific Communication, Adolescents’ Smoking Behavior and Friendship Selection , 2008 .