Building on previous findings supporting the continuing influence of parents on their teens after they have gone to college [Turrisi, R., Jaccard, J., Taki, R., Dunnam, H., & Grimes, J. (2001). Examination of the short-term efficacy of a parent intervention to reduce college student drinking tendencies. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 15(4), 366-372.; Turrisi, R., Padilla, K., & Wiersma, K. (2000). College student drinking: An examination of theoretical models of drinking tendencies in freshman and upperclassmen. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 61, 598-602.[28]], this study examined the possible indirect influence that parents may have on their teen's alcohol use through the selection of alcohol using peers in college. Friend use served as a mediator of the relationship between parenting characteristics and alcohol use in a longitudinal college sample. As part of a larger study, 392 incoming college freshmen were assessed for their perceptions of their parent's parenting practices, and peer alcohol use. Results from SEM indicated that friend alcohol use (first semester freshman year) mediated the relationship between parental knowledge about what their teen was doing in his/her free time (baseline pre-matriculation to college) and individual use in college (second semester freshman year). Findings suggest that even at this late stage of early adulthood parents continue to exhibit influence on the choices their teens make as far as friends, which in turn influences their teens' drinking in college. Implications for prevention are discussed.

This study examined the impact of parental modeled behavior and permissibility of alcohol use in late high school on the alcohol use and experienced negative drinking consequences of college students. Two-hundred ninety college freshmen at a large university were assessed for perceptions of their parents' permissibility of alcohol use, parents' alcohol-related behavior, and own experienced negative consequences associated with alcohol use. Results indicate that parental permissibility of alcohol use is a consistent predictor of teen drinking behaviors, which was strongly associated with experienced negative consequences. Parental modeled use of alcohol was also found to be a risk factor, with significant differences being seen across the gender of the parents and teens. Discussion focuses on risk factors and avenues for prevention research.

Discrepancies between parents and adolescents regarding parenting behaviors have been hypothesized to represent a deficit in the parent-child relationship and may represent unique risk factors for poor developmental outcomes. The current study examined the predictive utility of multiple methods for characterizing discrepancies in parents’ and adolescents’ reports of parental monitoring on youth alcohol use behaviors in order to inform future study design and predictive modeling. Data for the current study came from a prospective investigation of alcohol initiation and progression. The analyzed sample consisted of 606 adolescents (6th – 8th grade; 54% female) and their parents were surveyed at baseline, with youth followed up 12 months later. A series of hierarchical logistic regressions were performed for each monitoring-related construct examined (parental knowledge, parental control, parental solicitation, and child disclosure). The results showed that adolescents’ reports were more closely related to outcomes than parents’ reports, while greater discrepancies were frequently found to be uniquely associated with greater likelihood of alcohol use behaviors. Implications for future work incorporating parents’ and adolescents’ reports are discussed.

The study evaluated the timing and dosage of a parent-based intervention to minimize alcohol consumption for students with varying drinking histories. Method: First-year students (N = 1,900) completed Web assessments during the summer before college (baseline) and two follow-ups (fall of fi rst and second years). Students were randomized to one of four conditions (pre-college matriculation [PCM], pre-college matriculation plus boosters [PCM+B], after college matriculation [ACM], and control conditions). Seven indicators of drinking (drink in past month, been drunk in past month, weekday [Sunday to Wednesday] drinking, Thursday drinking, weekend [Friday, Saturday] drinking, heavy episodic drinking in past 2 weeks, and peak blood alcohol concentration <.08) were used in a latent transition analysis (LTA) to examine a stage-sequential model of drinking. LTA models with dummy-coded intervention variables were used to examine the effects of the intervention conditions on changes in drinking patterns. Results: Results indicated that four patterns of drinking were present at all waves: (a) nondrinkers, (b) weekend light drinkers, (c) weekend heavy episodic drinkers, and (d) heavy drinkers. Results indicated that the PCM condition was most effective at infl uencing baseline heavy drinkers' transition out of this pattern to lower risk patterns at fi rst follow-up, whereas the ACM condition was not effective at preventing drinking escalation for baseline nondrinkers at fi rst follow-up. No decay of effects was observed at long-term follow-up for the PCM condition. Finally, the results also indicated that increased dosage of the parental intervention was not signifi cantly associated with either reduction or escalation of use. Conclusions:The results underscore the value of pre-college parental interventions and targeted efforts to reduce high-risk drinking among college students.

ABSTRACT. Objective: The goal of this study was to explore the effect of subjective peer norms on adolescents' willingness to drink and whether this association was moderated by sensitivity to peer approval, prior alcohol use, and gender. Method: The sample was 1,023 middleschool students (52% female; 76% White; 12% Hispanic; M age = 12.22 years) enrolled in a prospective study of drinking initiation and progression. Using web-based surveys, participants reported on their willingness to drink alcohol if offered by (a) a best friend or (b) a classmate, peer norms for two referent groups (close friends and classmates), history of sipping or consuming a full drink of alcohol, and sensitivity to peer approval (extreme peer orientation). Items were re-assessed at two followups (administered 6 months apart). Results: Multilevel models revealed that measures of peer norms were signifi cantly associated with both willingness outcomes, with the greatest prediction by descriptive norms. The association between norms and willingness was magnifi ed for girls, those with limited prior experience with alcohol, and youths with low sensitivity to peer approval. Conclusions: Social norms appear to play a key role in substance use decisions and are relevant when considering more reactive behaviors that refl ect willingness to drink under conducive circumstances. Prevention programs might target individuals with higher willingness, particularly girls who perceive others to be drinking and youths who have not yet sipped alcohol but report a higher perceived prevalence of alcohol consumption among both friends and peers. (J.

As part of a parent intervention to reduce heavy-drinking, college freshmen were assessed for their attitudes toward drinking and reasonable alternatives to drinking on the weekends, as well as cognitive variables underlying attitudinal variables. Intervention parents received a handbook the summer prior to college entrance with information about college drinking and best practices for parent-teen communication. Results revealed that the association between intervention condition and drinking outcomes was mediated by attitudes favorable to drinking and reasonable alternatives to drinking, as well as beliefs about alcohol related behavior. This parent program was shown to be efficacious for changing high-risk drinking in college. Findings are discussed regarding the further development of college drinking prevention programs involving parents. KeywordsCollege Students; Alcohol; Parent; Intervention It has been well established that college students experiment in a disproportionately high number of risk behaviors including smoking, drinking, illicit drug use, and unprotected sexual activity (Dowdall & Wechsler, 2002;Maggs & Schulenberg, 2006;Hingson, Heeren, Winter, & Wechsler, 2005;O'Malley & Johnston, 2002). In particular, heavy episodic drinking (defined as consuming 5 or more drinks during a single occasion for men and 4 or more drinks for women) and negative consequences associated with alcohol use represent the most significant concerns on our nation's college campuses (Hingson et al., 2005;Johnston, O'Malley, Bachman, & Schulenberg, 2007;Kahler et al., 2004; NIAAA, 2006;Perkins, 2002;Perkins, Haines, & Rice, 2005;Wechsler, Seibring, Lui, & Ahl, 2004). In addition, heavy drinking in college has long been recognized as a contributing factor to negative consequences including academic impairment, property damage, legal costs, personal injuries, traffic fatalities, relationship problems, unplanned sexual activity, and sexual assault (Abbey, 2002;Abbey, Saenz, & Buck, 2005;Cooper, 2002;Dawson, Grant, Stinson, & Chou, 2004;Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller, 1992;Maggs & Schulenberg, 2006;Mallett et al., 2006).In response to the breadth of research coupling college alcohol misuse with a range of negative outcomes, both social scientists and college administrators have increased their (Carey, Scott-Sheldon, Carey, & DeMartini, 2007;Hingson & Howland, 2002;Perkins 2002). An attempt to understand the contextual, individual, and interpersonal influences on college drinking behavior has been, and continues to be, central to the construction of efficacious campus interventions to curb alcohol consumption (see Larimer & Cronce, 2002;2007). Individual factors such as gender, ethnicity, personality, and family history (Baer, 2002;Wechsler et al., 2004), alcohol expectancies and motives for drinking (Carey & Correia, 1997;Goldman, Greenbaum, & Darkes, 1997;Wood, Sher, & Rutledge, 2007), availability and attractiveness of alternative activities (Turrisi, 1999;Turrisi et al., 2001;Vuchinich & Tucker, 1988), and ecological ...

The current study prospectively examined hypothesized short- and long-term reciprocal relations between perceived parental knowledge and adolescent heavy episodic drinking, marijuana use, and delinquency. Using the contextual model of parenting style (Darling & Steinberg, 1993), we examined the extent to which the bidirectional nature of associations between knowledge and adolescent outcomes is dependent on a facet of parenting style: the quality of the parent-child relationship. Data came from the first 4 waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997. The sample for the current study consisted of 5,419 students between 12 and 14 years of age at baseline (52% male) surveyed annually for 4 years. Parallel process, autoregressive latent trajectory models were used to examine relations between initial levels and change over time in perceived parental knowledge and adolescent risk, and short-term cross-lagged paths were included to examine bidirectionality while accounting for long-term associations. Results showed significant short-term and long-term bidirectionality between perceived parental knowledge and adolescent outcomes, with parent effects on students and student effects on parents. Long-term associations across constructs were negative, whereas short-term associations were positive. These reciprocal associations were shown to differ across levels of parent-child relationship quality with regard to adolescent heavy episodic drinking and delinquency, providing support for the contextual model of parenting style. Implications for future work on parent-child bidirectional relationships and parent-based interventions are discussed.

ABSTRACT. Objective: Previous research identifi ed a high-risk subset of college students experiencing a disproportionate number of alcoholrelated consequences at the end of their fi rst year. With the goal of identifying pre-college predictors of membership in this high-risk subset, the present study used a prospective design to identify latent profi les of student-reported maternal and paternal parenting styles and alcoholspecifi c behaviors and to determine whether these profi les were associated with membership in the high-risk consequences subset. Method: A sample of randomly selected 370 incoming fi rst-year students at a large public university reported on their mothers' and fathers' communication quality, monitoring, approval of alcohol use, and modeling of drinking behaviors and on consequences experienced across the fi rst year of college. Results: Students in the high-risk subset comprised 15.5% of the sample but accounted for almost half (46.6%) of the total consequences reported by the entire sample. Latent profi le analyses identifi ed four parental profi les: positive pro-alcohol, positive anti-alcohol, negative mother, and negative father. Logistic regression analyses revealed that students in the negative-father profi le were at greatest odds of being in the high-risk consequences subset at a follow-up assessment 1 year later, even after drinking at baseline was controlled for. Students in the positive pro-alcohol profi le also were at increased odds of being in the high-risk subset, although this association was attenuated after baseline drinking was controlled for. Conclusions: These fi ndings have important implications for the improvement of existing parent-and individual-based college student drinking interventions designed to reduce alcohol-related consequences. (J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs, 73, 434-443, 2012)