Alcohol‐specific socialization practices and alcohol use in Dutch early adolescents

Abstract

The present study examined the associations of alcohol‐specific socialization practices and heavy parental drinking with alcohol use in early adolescents. Cross‐sectional nationwide survey data from 2599 parent–adolescent (mean age = 12.16) dyads were used to conduct logistic regression analyses. Onset of alcohol use as well as infrequent and regular drinking were associated with tolerant rules and attitude as reported by adolescents, and by a tolerant attitude as reported by parents. In contrast to former studies including middle and late adolescents, parental alcohol use was not found to be associated with early adolescent alcohol use, nor did parental alcohol use influence the impact of parental rules. Restrictive alcohol‐specific socialization was, independent of parental alcohol use, related to absence of (regular) early adolescent drinking. Thus, this study demonstrated that in early adolescence alcohol‐specific parenting is more important for adolescent drinking than parental alcohol use.

Alcohol-Specific Parenting as a Mechanism of Parental Drinking and Alcohol Use Disorder Risk on Adolescent Alcohol Use Onset

“…Although surprising, our results are consistent with studies that have failed to show that alcohol-specifi c parenting effects diminish when the parent is a heavy drinker (Koning et al, 2010;Van der Vorst et al, 2005). However, our lack of fi ndings may be a result of limited statistical power to detect complex interaction effects within our structural equation models.…”

“…Consistent with this notion is research showing that smoking-specifi c parenting is less effective when the parent is a smoker (Chassin et al, 2005). However, other studies have failed to fi nd the amount of parental drinking to be a signifi cant moderator of the relation between alcohol-specifi c parenting and adolescent drinking (Koning et al, 2010;Van der Vorst et al, 2005). Whether having an alcoholic parent diminishes the effectiveness of anti-alcohol parenting has yet to be explored.…”

“…Although strict antidrinking rules have been repeatedly linked with less adolescent drinking (e.g., Koning et al, 2010;Mares et al, 2012;Van der Vorst et al, 2005), results regarding the protective effect of parent-child communication about drinking are mixed (e.g., Ennett et al, 2001;Mares et al, 2011;Reimuller et al, 2011;Van der Vorst et al, 2010). Specifi cally, Ennett and colleagues (2001) found that parent-child communication about substance use rules predicted an increase in adolescent use over time.…”

Alcohol consumption among adolescents in Kraljevo, Serbia

“…A family history of alcohol use, as well as poor relations with parents, seems to significantly increase the likelihood of teenagers' early drinking initiation [2,7,9,14,15,17,22,23,35,46,[51][52][53][54][55][56], although the findings have not always been consistent [11,38]. In the present study, excessive alcohol consumption by a family member, parental disapproval, and lack of esteem negatively influenced adolescent drinking behavior.…”

Trends in adolescent alcohol use in the Netherlands, 1992–2015: Differences across sociodemographic groups and links with strict parental rule-setting

“…Answers were re-coded into 0 (never) and 1 (once or more). Second, the number of glasses consumed during a weekend was measured using a Quantity-Frequency Scale (Knibbe, Oostveen, & Van de Goor, 1991;Koning, Engels, Verdurmen, & Vollebergh, 2010). This scale measures the average number of alcoholic drinks consumed during a weekend by multiplying the number of drinking days during the weekend (Friday to Sunday) and the number of usual drinks on a weekend day.…”