The role of parents in adolescents' alcohol use

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the existing literature on the role of parents in the development of adolescents' alcohol use. Numerous studies showed that adolescents model the drinking of their parents, particularly the drinking of the fathers. Other parental influences involve the way parents raise their children in general or specifically concerning alcohol use (alcohol-specific socialization). Parents being supportive toward their adolescent children and monitoring their daily lives have children who drink fewer amounts of alcohol. Also, parents who prohibit alcohol use at home and in other settings have strict attitudes about youth drinking, and supervising the drinking of adolescents lower the risk for their children to start using alcohol at an early age and to drink heavy later on in adolescence. However, parents are not rigid in their (alcohol-specific) parenting and adolescents are not passive recipients of the parenting. It seems that parents become more tolerant toward youth -drinking over time which results in heavier drinking of the adolescents. The drinking of adolescents, on the other hand, affects their parents in the sense that parents withdraw in their parental efforts of controlling youth alcohol use. This in turn predicts an increase in adolescents' alcohol use. Implications for future research are discussed.