Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Kandel, Denise B.

Titel

Parenting Styles, Drug Use, and Children's Adjustment in Families of Young Adults

Ist Teil von

• Journal of marriage and family, 1990-02, Vol.52 (1), p.183-196

Ort / Verlag

Minneapolis, Minn: National Council on Family Relations

Erscheinungsjahr

1990

Quelle

ERIC

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Childrearing practices and child adjustment are examined in a longitudinal cohort of young adults for whom detailed drug histories are available. Analyses are based on a dyadic sample of 222 parents and their oldest child aged 6 years or older. Parents who use punitive discipline methods or disagree with their spouses about discipline are more likely to report that their children are aggressive, have control problems, and are disobedient. Parents who report that they are close to their children are more likely to report that the children are well adjusted, do not have control problems, are independent, and are close to their parents. Maternal childrearing patterns are correlated with a wider range of children's behaviors than are paternal patterns. Few relationships are observed between three measures of parental drug involvement or heavy drinking and parental childrearing practices. By contrast, a relatively strong pattern emerges between maternal drug involvement and child behaviors. For all three measures of drug involvement, mothers who are more heavily involved in drugs report more control problems with their children. Fewer associations are observed with respect to fathers, and in half the instances, the associations are opposite in direction to those expected. Maternal drug use retains a statistically significant unique effect on control problems when other parental variables are entered simultaneously in a multiple regression equation and is one of the two strongest predictors of the child's problematic behavior. The finding of an effect of parental drug use on child control problems has important implications, since conduct problems in childhood and early adolescence are thought to be one of the most important precursors of adolescent drug use as well as delinquency.