Reciprocal Relations Between Perceived Parental Knowledge and Adolescent Substance Use and Delinquency: The Moderating Role of Parent-Teen Relationship Quality

• Published in: Developmental psychology 2014-09, Vol.50 (9), p.2176-2187
• Main Authors: Abar, Caitlin C, Jackson, Kristina M, Wood, Mark
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Addictive behaviors; Adolescent; Adolescent Development; Adolescents; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Alcohol Abuse; Alcohol Drinking - psychology; At Risk Persons; Binge Drinking; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child & adolescent psychiatry; Child Rearing; Correlation; Delinquency; Developmental psychology; Drinking; Drug Usage; Female; Gender Differences; Human; Humans; Juvenile Delinquency; Juvenile Delinquency - psychology; Knowledge (General); Knowledge Level; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Marijuana; Medical sciences; Miscellaneous; Parent Child Relationship; Parent Role; Parent-Child Relations; Parental Characteristics; Parenting - psychology; Parenting Style; Parenting Styles; Parents; Parents & parenting; Parents - psychology; Perceptions; Prospective Studies; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Regression analysis; Relationship Quality; Risk Taking; Sex Factors; Social behavior disorders. Criminal behavior. Delinquency; Social Perception; Statistical Analysis; Substance Abuse; Substance-Related Disorders - psychology; Time Factors
• ISSN: 0012-1649; 1939-0599
• DOI: 10.1037/a0037463

The current study prospectively examined hypothesized short- and long-term reciprocal relations between perceived parental knowledge and adolescent heavy episodic drinking, marijuana use, and delinquency. Using the contextual model of parenting style (Darling & Steinberg, 1993), we examined the extent to which the bidirectional nature of associations between knowledge and adolescent outcomes is dependent on a facet of parenting style: the quality of the parent-child relationship. Data came from the first 4 waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997. The sample for the current study consisted of 5,419 students between 12 and 14 years of age at baseline (52% male) surveyed annually for 4 years. Parallel process, autoregressive latent trajectory models were used to examine relations between initial levels and change over time in perceived parental knowledge and adolescent risk, and short-term cross-lagged paths were included to examine bidirectionality while accounting for long-term associations. Results showed significant short-term and long-term bidirectionality between perceived parental knowledge and adolescent outcomes, with parent effects on students and student effects on parents. Long-term associations across constructs were negative, whereas short-term associations were positive. These reciprocal associations were shown to differ across levels of parent-child relationship quality with regard to adolescent heavy episodic drinking and delinquency, providing support for the contextual model of parenting style. Implications for future work on parent-child bidirectional relationships and parent-based interventions are discussed.