Monday, July 18, 2011

How parents influence adolescent substance abuse

While I was doing some research for the Social Marketing Workgroup's (SMW) action plan, I found a report entitled, "Family Ties: How Parents Influence Adolescent Substance Abuse".  It clearly explains why certain parenting practices are effective in preventing youth substance abuse.

One of the parenting practices that the SMW will be promoting is monitoring teenage children.  According to the report:  Support and control have been identified by researchers as two complementary components of parenting (Barnes and Farrell, 1992). The construct of support includes areas such as nurturance, attachment, acceptance, and love, whereas the construct of control includes discipline, supervision, and monitoring. Monitoring has further been defined as parental knowledge of their child’s companions, whereabouts, and activities . . . High levels of parental monitoring are associated with low frequencies of drinking and illicit drug use.
 
According to community parent surveys conducted by Prevention WINS in 2008 and 2010, while NE Seattle parents talk to their children about not using alcohol and/or marijuana, many do not monitor their teenage children. 

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