A Framework for Studying Parental Socialization of Child and Adolescent Substance Use

Abstract

This chapter presents a model of parental socialization that summarizes the interrelations among parental modeling of substance use, parent approval, parental monitoring and control, parent–child relationship quality, child cognitions, friends’ substance use, and child/adolescent substance use. Parental alcohol consumption, smoking, and drug use are significant predictors of child and adolescent drinking, smoking, and marijuana use. Parental substance use is associated with lower quality parenting and family management practices and lower quality relationships with offspring, both of which are associated with greater offspring substance use. Parental substance use, parental approval, parenting practices, and relationship quality are associated with adolescents’ affiliation with substance-using friends. Parental non-use, effective parenting practices, and good-quality parent–child relationships buffer the relation between friends’ modeling of substance use and adolescent offspring substance use. The model should facilitate the development of targeted tests of its utility for generating new research on the socialization of adolescent substance use.