Poster #231 - Parental Problem Drinking and Child Social Behavior: Pathways of Risk through Family Dysfunction

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Social Relationships

Integrative Statement

Exposure to parental problem drinking (PPD) is associated with children’s risk for internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, academic difficulties, and substance use problems (Rossow, Felix, Keating, & McCambridge, 2015). Exposure to destructive marital conflict and harsh parenting may serve as mechanisms of risk (Keller, Cummings, Davies, & Mitchell, 2008). However, there has been limited research on the potential direct and indirect impact of PPD on children’s social behavior, and there are no known studies of PPD and child prosocial behavior. The purpose of the current study is to evaluate marital conflict, insecurity about the marital relationship, and harsh parenting as mediators of associations between PPD and social behavior in children aged five to 18 years.

An online survey was distributed through Amazon Mechanical Turk to parents of children ages 5 – 18 residing in the United States. Parents completed the Parental Alcohol Experiences Scale (Windle, 1995), the Conflict and Problem Solving Scales (Kerig, 1996), the Security in the Interparental Subsystem Scale (Davies, Forman, Rasi, & Stevens, 2002), the Parent as Social Context Questionnaire (Skinner, Johnson, & Snyder, 2005) subscales for parental rejection and coercion, and the Child Behavior Scale (Ladd & Profilet, 1996) subscales for asocial behavior, social exclusion, and prosocial behavior. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (see Figure 1 for an example), and all models controlled for child age, sex, and family financial status. Separate models were fit for the three different measures of child social behavior.

Mother problem drinking was related to greater marital conflict, which in turn was related to greater emotional insecurity, and greater emotional insecurity was linked to greater asocial behavior and social exclusion. However, measures of insecurity were related to prosocial behavior in different ways; behavioral dysregulation was related to lower prosocial behavior but involvement in marital conflict was related to greater prosocial behavior. A similar pathway was observed for father problem drinking. Mother and father problem drinking were also directly related to greater emotional insecurity. Furthermore, marital conflict was associated with greater harsh parenting, which was related to greater asocial behavior and social exclusion, and less prosocial behavior. Both mother and father problem drinking were also directly related to greater harsh parenting. Finally, mother problem drinking was directly related to asocial behavior and social exclusion. There were no direct associations between PPD and child prosocial behavior.

Findings support PPD as a risk factor for child social problems and lower prosocial behavior. Findings also indicate that marital conflict and harsh parenting are important mechanisms of risk. However, results are cross-sectional and the study design uses a single reporter for all variables. Thus, additional research is needed to identify the possible causal direction of associations.

Authors

• Belle Faith Scott, Wofford College
  Presenting Author

• Haley Michlitsch, University of Kentucky
  Non-Presenting Author

• Peggy Keller, University of Kentucky
  Non-Presenting Author