Behavioral Disorders in Children With Parental Alcoholism

Abstract

The influence of parental alcoholism on the personalities of the children was studied by use of the Devereux Rating Scales to delineate problem behavior patterns. The subjects for the investigation were identified as a result of their parents being in treatment for alcoholism, and a control group matched for age, sex, race, family size, and socioeconomic status was utilized. The findings suggest that the presence of parental alcoholism acts as a serious deterrent to healthy personality development in the children, and the degree of disturbance in these individuals might be greater than previously suspected. Several implications of these observations are discussed, including the importance of considering alcohol abuse as a total family problem.

History of sexual abuse and parental alcohol misuse: Risk, outcomes and protective factors in adolescents

“…Examples of this include: a) drug and drinking problems (Cadoret and Gath, 1978;Wallace, 1987;Claydon, 1987;Pandina and Johnson, 1990;Sher et al, 1991); b) delinquency (Beardslee, Son & Vaillant, 1986;Stewart & Wilcox, 1985;Werner, 1986); c) emotional problems (Fine, et al, 1976;Moos & Billings, 1982;Reich, Earls & Powel, 1988;Hinz, 1990;Sher et al, 1991;Jarmas & Kazak, 1992); d) low self-esteem (Hughes, 1977); e) antisocial and aggressive behavior (Fine, et al, 1976;Herjanic, et al, 1976;Rimmer, 1982); f) familial disruptions and conflicts (Schulsinger, et al, 1986;Reich, Earls & Powel, 1988;Tubman, 1991); g) problems with legal authorities (Nylander, 1960;Rydelius, 1981;Werner, 1986); h) eating disorders (Chandy et al, 1994a;Claydon, 1987;); i) physical abuse (Reich, Earls & Powell, 1988); j) school problems (Rimmer, 1982;Marcus, 1986;Schulsinger, et al, 1986;Miller and Jang, 1977;Hyphantis et al, 1991;Murphy, et al, 1991;Sher et al, 1991;Chandy et al, 1993); k) pregnancy risk (Rydelius, 1981;Miller and Jang, 1977;Currier and Aponte, 1991;Chandy et al, 1994b); and, 1) suicidal...…”

A community based approach to clinical services for children of substance abusers

“…Children of substance abusers are also at-risk for developing other conditions such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (Goodwin et al, 1975;Cantwell, 1972;Morrison and Stewart, 1971), conduct disorders (Rydelius, 1981;Chafetz, Blane and Hill, 1971;Haberman, 1966;Aronson and Gilbert, 1963), and other behavioral disturbances (Nylander and Rydelius, 1982;Fine et al, 1976;Chafetz, Blane, and Hill, 1971).…”

Female adolescents of alcohol misusers: Disordered eating features

“…self-esteem (Hughes, 1977); (f) antisocial and aggressive behavior (Fine et al, 1976;Herjanic, Herjanic, Penick, Tomerelli, & Armbruster, 1977); (g) familial disruptions and conflicts (Schulsinger et al, 1986;Reich et al, 1988); (h) problems with legal authorities (Nylander, 1960;Rydelius, 1981;Werner, 1986); (i) eating disorders (Claydon, 1987;Pyle, Mitchell, & Eckert, 1981); (j) physical abuse (Reich et al, 1988); (k) pregnancy risk (Rydelius, 1981;Miller & Jang, 1977;Currier & Aponte, 1991;Chandy, Harris, Blum, & Resnick, in press). Among these undesirable outcomes, perhaps one of the least investigated is the impact of parental alcohol abuse on eating disorders of children.…”