Effects of Childhood Behavior Problems on Parental Drinking

by National Institute of Health

(Page 2 of 4)

As described in the previous section, in families with children with behavior disorders and/or parental alcoholism, both the parents and children appear to have an elevated risk for alcohol-related problems. Researchers have only recently begun, however, to explore the causal mechanisms operating in these relationships. In addition, the research has focused primarily on the effects that parental drinking has on the children and their behavior. Some recent studies, however, have begun to examine the possible effects of deviant child behavior on parental alcohol problems.

Researchers and clinicians widely believe that children with behavior problems, particularly those with such externalizing disorders as ADHD, can adversely affect their parents' mental health. Childhood externalizing problems frequently result in stressful family environments and life events affecting all family members, including parents. For example, numerous investigators have reported higher rates of current depression in mothers of children who were referred to a clinic because of behavioral problems than in mothers of healthy children. In addition, a significant correlation exists between daily parenting hassles (experiencing difficulty finding a baby sitter, having to talk to a child's teacher, or coping with fighting among siblings) and child behavior problems. Thus, studies investigating the distressing effects of deviant child behavior on the immediate reactions and long-term functioning of parents have shown that exposure to difficult children is associated with dysfunctional parental responses, such as maladaptive discipline practices.

Despite the evidence that children with behavior problems cause substantial stress and other dysfunctional responses in their parents, almost no research has investigated whether these parental responses include elevated alcohol consumption and/or alcohol problems. This lack of research is particularly surprising given the well-documented association between adult alcohol problems and childhood externalizing disorders. Several relationships may exist among deviant child behavior, parental stress, and two broad types of dysfunctional responses in parents - emotional problems, such as anxiety and depression (negative affect), and problem drinking. The relationships among parental affect, drinking, and child behavior problems are believed to be transactional, with each variable influencing the other over time. In addition, various parental and child characteristics may influence these relationships. We have hypothesized that child behavior problems increase parental distress, which in turn influences drinking and parental affect. Drinking and negative affect result in maladaptive parenting behaviors, which exacerbate child behavior problems.

Studies of the Influences of Child Behavior on Parental Drinking

Between 1985 and 1995, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Florida State University conducted a series of studies examining the relationships described above. Although some of those analyses have examined the influences of parental alcohol consumption on child behavior, most of the investigations have focused on the influences exerted by child behavior on parental behavior. Thus, these studies have manipulated child behavior and measured the resulting levels and changes in parental alcohol consumption. In order to determine the direction of effect in the documented associations between child behavior problems and parental drinking problems, the studies were conducted as experimental laboratory analogues, rather than as correlational studies in the natural environment.

Thus, all the studies described in this section have employed a similar design and similar measures. The participants, of whom most were parents and all were social drinkers (none were alcohol abstainers and none were self-reported problem drinkers), were recruited for what they believed were studies designed to investigate the effects of alcohol consumption on the way they interacted with children. The participants were told that they would have a baseline interaction with a child, followed by a period in which they could consume as much of their favored alcoholic beverage as they wanted (an ad lib drinking period), followed by another interaction with the same child. Each interaction period consisted of three phases: 1. a cooperative task in which the child and adult had to cooperate to solve a maze on an Etch-a-Sketch, 2. a parallel task during which the child worked on homework while the adult balanced a checkbook, and 3. a free-play and clean-up period. In all three settings, the adult was responsible for ensuring that the child stuck to the required task but also was directed to refrain from providing the child with too much assistance.

The adult participants were led to believe that the aim of the study was to compare their interactions with the children before and after drinking in order to learn about alcohol's effects on adultchild interactions. The adults also were told that the child with whom they would interact might be a normal child from a local school or an ADHD child who was receiving treatment in a clinic. In fact, however, all of the children were normal children who had been hired and trained to enact carefully scripted roles that reflected either ADHD, noncompliant, or oppositional behavior (referred to as "deviant children") or normal child behavior (referred to as "normal children"). The true goal of the study was to evaluate each adult's emotional, physiological, and drinking behavior in response to his or her first interaction with a particular child and while anticipating a second interaction with the same child.

About the Author

NIH is the nation's medical research agency - making important medical discoveries that improve health and save lives. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting medical research.