Parental attributes and adolescent drug use.

While many studies have examined the relationship of family and parent factors to adolescent drug use, few have had the opportunity to examine these longitudinally. Most measures of various family patterns, including discipline, conflict and rejection, have been concurrent with the adolescents' drug use and usually are reported by the youths themselves. The study reported here is unique in its thirty year data base on 133 subjects and their families. Data collection in the New York Longitudinal Study included extensive interviews with the parents during the subjects' very early childhood which detailed their parenting attitudes and practices. Five of these clusters as reported in other concurrent studies were used to test whether the parental factor scores could discriminate between those adolescent subjects who were users of alcohol, tobacco and marijuana and those who were not users. Results of the Discriminant Function analyses showed that parental conflict in childrearing practices, inconsistent discipline, restrictive discipline and maternal rejection were associated with marijuana and alcohol use in older adolescents. The need for early parent education and skill building in order to prevent later developmental difficulties is indicated.