Citation

Prins JC, Donovan JE, Molina BS. J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs 2011; 72(3): 438-443.

Affiliation

Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, 3811 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213-2593.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Alcohol Research Documentation, Inc., Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

21513680

PMCID

PMC3084358

Abstract

Objective: Despite the importance of alcohol use norms as predictors of adolescent and college drinking, there has been little research on their development from childhood into adolescence. This study used parental and child beliefs regarding the acceptability of sipping, drinking, and drunkenness for children ages 8-16 years to establish age norms for these alcohol use behaviors and examined differences in the growth of these norms between parents and children. Method: Data were collected as part of an ongoing cohort-sequential longitudinal study of 452 families with children initially 8 or 10 years old followed over 10 waves covering the age span from age 8 to age 16 years. Children completed interviews every 6 months. Parents completed interviews annually. Latent growth modeling was performed on the mother, father, and child data. Results: Unconditional latent growth curve modeling showed that parental acceptance of child sipping increased with child age but that there was no increase in their acceptance of child drinking or drunkenness through age 16 years. In contrast, there was significant growth in children's acceptance of sipping, drinking, and drunkenness. Piecewise growth models with a transition at 11.5 or 12 years of age best described the development of child and adolescent alcohol use norms. Conclusions: From middle childhood into middle adolescence, there is increasing divergence between parents' acceptance of alcohol use by children and child/adolescent acceptance of alcohol use by people their age. (J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs, 72, 438-443, 2011).

Language: en