The Effects of Parenting on the Development of Adolescent Alcohol Misuse: A Six‐Wave Latent Growth Model

Abstract

Alcohol use increases throughout adolescence. Based on family socialization theory, it was hypothesized that family factors, particularly parental support and monitoring, would influence individual trajectories in the development of alcohol misuse. Six waves of data were analyzed, based on interviews with 506 adolescents in the general population of a northeastern metropolitan area. Using growth‐curve longitudinal analysis, results show that parenting significantly predicts adolescents' initial drinking levels (intercepts) as well as their rates of increase in alcohol misuse (slope). This study provides evidence that effective parenting is an important factor in preventing alcohol misuse.