How Do Parental Psychological Distress and Alcohol Use Relate to Child and Adolescent Externalizing Behavior? Evidence From a Prospective Cohort Study of Urban African Americans

Introduction: Parental psychological distress, alcohol use, and child/adolescent behavior problems often occur together and can have devastating effects on families. While extant evidence suggests that parental psychological distress and alcohol use are associated with child/adolescent externalizing behavior, less is known about the longitudinal patterns and directions of these relations over time, particularly among African Americans. By better understanding how parents and children influence one another over time, we may be able to develop more effective and targeted prevention strategies.

 Methods: The aim of this study is to examine the contemporaneous, longitudinal, and cross-lagged relationships between parental psychological distress and alcohol use, and child and adolescent externalizing behavior. The data comes from the Woodlawn Study, a prospective cohort study of urban African Americans followed from age 6-42 in Chicago, IL. The current analysis uses a subsample (n = 529) of respondents who reported having a child living in their household during the young adult interview, and focuses on relationships between young adulthood and midlife (a 10 year period). Structural equation modeling is used to examine all the relationships of interest simultaneously, while controlling for the potential extraneous influence of parents’ gender, household composition, poverty, and neighborhood factors. 

 Results: We find significant contemporaneous associations between parental psychological distress and alcohol use, and child/adolescent externalizing behavior within each life stage. In addition, there is significant continuity and stability in these constructs over time. Finally, parental alcohol use and child/adolescent externalizing behavior influence one another in a cross-lagged pattern: Parental alcohol use in young adulthood predicts adolescent externalizing behavior, while child externalizing behavior predicts subsequent parental alcohol use in midlife.

 Conclusions: Given the continuity across time of child externalizing behavior, and parental psychological distress and alcohol use, early interventions with urban African American parents and children may be vital in preventing future problems in each of these three areas.  The strong co-occurrence of parental alcohol use and child/adolescent externalizing behavior, as well as their influence on one another over time suggests that interventions addressing these behaviors should involve both parents and children, and may have immediate and long-term impact. Given the relational complexities of parental alcohol use and child externalizing behavior over time, early interventions to address either of these behaviors may impact both future parental alcohol use and adolescent problem behavior.