Parent-child relationship quality and adolescent alcohol use

To the Editor

Parents have a key role in the development of adolescent alcohol use, and this has important implications for prevention programmes and policies. In a previous edition of this journal, Ryan et al. (2010) conducted a systematic review of longitudinal studies that examined parenting factors related to adolescent alcohol use. The authors identified key parenting strategies associated with adolescent alcohol use (age of initiation and levels of alcohol use), including parental modelling, provision of alcohol, monitoring, and parent-child relationship quality. Their review provides a valuable analysis of parent dimensions that are univariately and longitudinally related to adolescent alcohol use. In this letter, we propose two areas for future research that build on their review.

First, we propose that parenting factors may interact to predict adolescent alcohol use. In particular, parent-child relationship quality (e.g. strong bonds, open and clear communication), may be a key context that determines the impact of alcohol-specific parenting practices (e.g. monitoring, supervision) on adolescent alcohol use. While research on the interaction of family factors has begun to emerge since the review by Ryan et al. (2010), most prior research has continued to treat family factors as constructs independent of each other. Yet, family factors may interact in important ways. For example, in the context of an emotionally close and happy relationship, parental rules about alcohol use may reduce alcohol-related risks. In the context of a distant and unhappy relationship, parental rules about alcohol use may have undesirable outcomes. If both these processes occur, the net impact of family conflict may be weak, and potentially important and more complex processes may be obscured.

Our second suggestion for further research relates to the theoretical mechanisms linking family/parenting factors with adolescent alcohol use. Family and parenting factors vary in the extent to which they are alcohol-specific (e.g. family conflict and emotional closeness versus rules about alcohol use). Much research on how non-alcohol-specific parenting factors are related to adolescent alcohol use does not explore the mechanisms that link these two factors. Several studies now indicate that poor family relationship quality may have consequences, such as adolescent depression (Chan et al., 2013) and engagement with high-risk peer groups (Kelly et al., 2011), that have a more tangible theoretical link with adolescent alcohol use (e.g. drinking to reduce negative affect, peer-group socialization). Therefore, research that examines the direct links between non-alcohol-specific parenting factors and adolescent alcohol use may miss important indirect links between these constructs. Notably, we recently found that family conflict did not directly predict adolescent alcohol use, but predicted depressed mood in girls, which subsequently predicted alcohol misuse (Chan et al., 2013).

The review by Ryan et al. (2010) captures well the evidence on how parenting factors may influence adolescent alcohol use. Further research on examining interactive models and the potential indirect effects of family processes is needed, and this may provide more specific guidance in the delivery of family-oriented prevention programmes.