How important are parents during the college years? A longitudinal perspective of indirect influences parents yield on their college teens' alcohol use

Abstract

Building on previous findings supporting the continuing influence of parents on their teens after they have gone to college [Turrisi, R., Jaccard, J., Taki, R., Dunnam, H., & Grimes, J. (2001). Examination of the short-term efficacy of a parent intervention to reduce college student drinking tendencies. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 15(4), 366-372.; Turrisi, R., Padilla, K., & Wiersma, K. (2000). College student drinking: An examination of theoretical models of drinking tendencies in freshman and upperclassmen. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 61, 598-602.[28]], this study examined the possible indirect influence that parents may have on their teen's alcohol use through the selection of alcohol using peers in college. Friend use served as a mediator of the relationship between parenting characteristics and alcohol use in a longitudinal college sample. As part of a larger study, 392 incoming college freshmen were assessed for their perceptions of their parent's parenting practices, and peer alcohol use. Results from SEM indicated that friend alcohol use (first semester freshman year) mediated the relationship between parental knowledge about what their teen was doing in his/her free time (baseline pre-matriculation to college) and individual use in college (second semester freshman year). Findings suggest that even at this late stage of early adulthood parents continue to exhibit influence on the choices their teens make as far as friends, which in turn influences their teens' drinking in college. Implications for prevention are discussed.

Figure 1. Hypothesized Structural Equation Model

Figure 2. Final model with beta weights

χ² (205) = 446.65, p < .001; CFI = .96; RMSEA = .06 *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001 Note: All factor loadings modeled were significant, p < .001 (see Appendix A). All residual covariances modeled were significant, p < .05. The item residuals associated with parental approval were held equal for identifiability reasons. Factor covariances between parental approval and baseline use, parental approval and friend use, squared parental monitoring and parental knowledge, parental knowledge and baseline use, parental knowledge and friend use, and friend use and baseline use were all significant, p < .001, and were not included in the figure in order to avoid clutter. The covariance between the residuals of friend use and individual alcohol use at time 2 was also significant, p < .001. All other covariances were fixed to zero.