Child and Adolescent Socialization into Substance Use

Abstract

This chapter reviews the literature on family, peer, and media influences on alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use among children and adolescents. Parental drinking and drug use are significant predictors of child and adolescent drinking, smoking, and marijuana use. Furthermore, parental substance use is associated with lower quality parenting and family management practices, which are, in turn, associated with greater offspring substance use. In addition, parental substance use and parenting practices are associated with adolescents’ affiliation with substance-using friends. Parental nonuse and effective parenting practices buffer the relation between friends’ modeling of substance use and adolescent offspring substance use. Sibling and friend substance use relate both concurrently and longitudinally to adolescent substance use. Lastly, child and adolescent exposure to alcohol and smoking on television and in films, and to alcohol and cigarette advertising, constitutes a third independent source of modeling and influence on child and adolescent substance use.