Families were counted only once, even if both parents attended. The program consisted of four sessions for Cohort 1 and three evening sessions for Cohort 2. One session on improving communication between parents and children was eliminated for the second cohort in that it appeared to contain too much material with not enough time for parents to master the related skills. The first session was meant to enlist the largest number of parents. Both children and parents were invited to participate, because parents would-be more likely to attend with their children, particularly if their children were participating in the program Laudeman During the first session, students demonstrated drug refusal skills to be used to counter peer pressure.
Students had completed a list of their 10 best friends in school, and by way of a correlation matrix, we were able to cluster a group of 5 to 15 students who had named each other as best friends. The few children who were not named were put into one of the larger groups of students.
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The list was distributed with the disclaimer that the groups might not be completely accurate, but that parents could use these lists as a basis for starting to identify and familiarize themselves with their children's friends. As an activity, students and parents were asked to create a telephone directory of their friends and friends' parents.
Last, a workbook that summarized the session and listed activities and suggestions that might help parents keep their children drug-free was distributed. Workbooks and lists of friendship circles were mailed to parents who did not attend the session. Parents were invited to attend the second session without their children and to meet in friendship circles so that parents whose children were friends could get to know each other. The setting was more informal, either a host parent's home or a comfortable environment such as the school library or staff room.
During this session, a facilitator led an interactive discussion that covered changes associated with adolescence, strategies that adolescents frequently use to manipulate parents and how parents could prevent such manipulation, issues related to the development and enforcement of rules, and general sharing of child-rearing practices that seemed to be useful for participants.
In the third session, the parents were to meet again in their friendship circles and, with the help of a facilitator, discuss issues relating to alcohol use and, if possible, develop a consensus on them.
A Parent-Targeted Intervention for Adolescent Substance Use Prevention: Lessons Learned
Those issues included abstinence versus responsible use of alcohol, access to parents' liquor cabinets, unchaperoned events, and curfews. Given that program participation is enhanced by personal contact, endorsement by peer leaders, and involvement of children Laudeman , we used several procedures in each school to maximize attendance.
We emphasized that parents would meet their children's friends and the parents of these friends. Parents were recruited to participate in phone trees and to remind other parents to attend. Reminder flyers were sent home with students about 2 weeks and 1 to 2 days before the evening sessions. For the friendship circle meeting, the parents who had volunteered to host the session in their home or at the school personally called other parents in their circle to encourage them to attend. Trained data collectors administered surveys to children in their classrooms. To encourage honest reporting, students were informed that all answers would be confidential.
In particular, students were promised that their answers would not be disclosed to parents, teachers, or other authorities. Parent surveys were completed at home and returned in sealed envelopes through their children or by mail. We obtained data regarding demographics and numerous aspects of parent-child relationships from the surveys. In addition, students were asked to report about ever using tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs e.
Parents reported their own tobacco and alcohol use but were not asked to speculate about their children's drug use. Separate principal component analyses were performed on the data collected from the child and parent surveys, and items that were not correlated with any component in both the parent and child scales were eliminated. Items that loaded together were standardized and averaged to form a summary scale. Reliability of the scales was good, with coefficient alphas similar for both parents and students, ranging from. The parent behavior constructs were monitoring, a measure of how much the parents knew about their children's whereabouts; rapport, a measure of the time spent together and communication between parent and child; respect, a measure of positive relations, praise, and fair treatment of children; knowledge of children's friends; and parental consistency.
The amount of children's household chores was measured, as well as children's risk-taking behavior and report of substance-using peers. Student and parent perceptions of whether children's peers used tobacco, alcohol, or marijuana and of parenting behaviors were compared. To determine predictors of the onset of tobacco and alcohol experimentation, students who already used substances at baseline were deleted from the analysis. Surveys were administered to both parents and students at baseline, after the intervention spring of the first year , and every year thereafter.
The research design is diagrammed in Table 1. Cohort 1 was composed of 1, fifth graders recruited from 17 elementary schools. In Cohort 1, only 8 parents 1. The number of subjects and the rate of attrition are shown in Table 2.
In both cohorts, several students who had returned parental consent forms after the classroom survey was administered in the fall were measured only in the spring of the first year. Compared with students who completed surveys throughout, students who had dropped out were more likely to be Hispanic and to have higher baseline tobacco use as well as more substance-using peers.
Parents with lower educational backgrounds and higher tobacco use were more likely to drop out. When comparing the self-reported parenting behaviors of parents who completed surveys throughout the study with those who dropped out, in Cohort 1 there were no striking differences in reported baseline parenting behaviors. In Cohort 2, parents of seventh graders , parents who dropped out were less likely to monitor their children, spend time with them, and know their children's friends.
In Cohort 1, only 52 parents actually attended at least one of the sessions. In Cohort 2, only 96 parents actually attended at least one of the sessions. Compared with attenders, parents who did not attend were more likely to be Asian and less likely to be married. There were no significant differences in self-reported parenting behaviors between attenders and nonattenders. Throughout each year of the study, there were no differences in tobacco and alcohol use between control and study groups in either cohort, controlling for gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, or using classroom or school as unit of analysis.
Use of tobacco and alcohol increased annually in both groups. In Cohort 1, tobacco use increased from 9. Among Cohort 1 students, experimentation with alcohol increased from There were no significant differences between control and study groups in children's reports of parenting behavior over time. Among both cohorts and across both study and control groups, children's perceptions of monitoring, rapport, and respect tended to decrease over time.
Knowing children's friends, household chores, and parental consistency were stable, while risk-taking behavior tended to increase over time See Figure 3. When children's perceptions of parenting behaviors were stratified by the onset of children's tobacco or alcohol use, children who became smokers or drinkers showed larger declines in parental respect Figures 4a and 4b , parent rapport Figures 4c and 4d , and parental monitoring Figures 4e and 4f , compared with children who remained nonsmokers or nondrinkers.
No differential declines occurred in how well parents knew children's friends over time among children who used tobacco and alcohol and those who did not See Figures 4g and 4h. The parent-child discrepancy was not as pronounced between parents and children whose peers did not use substances. When examining parental intentions to attend the parent program with respect to parental assessment of parenting behaviors, parents who perceived higher degrees of rapport, respect, monitoring, and knowledge of children's friends were more likely to report wanting to attend a parent program.
Parental assessment of children's risk-taking behavior, however, was not associated with parental intentions to attend a drug prevention program. Parents who were single and parents who were older were also more likely to say they would attend. Nevertheless, there was no association between age, marital status, or child's substance use with actual attendance. In addition, actual attendance was not associated with relationship to child mother or father , ethnicity, parent age or education, student gender, parent alcohol use, student smoking, student alcohol use, other parent reports of parenting practices, or student reports of parenting behaviors.
We believe the parent-targeted drug prevention program failed to produce changes in adolescent substance use for several reasons. First, even though participation in the intervention was very low, in hindsight, the theoretical model based on the hypothesis that parents could reduce the strongest risk factor—association with substance-using peers—was unrealistic. Parents for the most part did not believe their children's friends used substances and so had no motivation to act as gatekeepers. In all surveys, the parents reported less drug use among students' friends than did the students and the difference between the parents' and students' perceptions increased over time.
The most strongly targeted factor, parents' knowing their children's friends, was not even associated with the onset of substance use. Students' perceptions of the parenting factors monitoring, rapport, and respect were found to be protective against substance use. Although the intervention addressed these briefly, parent perception of the level of monitoring, respect, and rapport among parents whose children used substances was also considerably higher than their children's perceptions. Although it is impossible to say whose perception is the most accurate, the child's perception is the one correlated with substance use.
The differential perception of these parenting skills suggests that parents of children who use substances do not have any basis or impetus to improve, because they believe their skills related to monitoring, rapport, and respect are already high. Without awareness that there may be a perception gap, parents are unlikely to make an effort that may alter their children's perception, which may in turn reduce their children's risk of substance use.
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Monitoring, a factor measuring parents' knowledge of their children's whereabouts, rather than who they are with, was a protective factor for both tobacco and alcohol use. This factor is likely to be a proxy for concern about the child and may contribute to a child's resilience and capacity to resist peer pressure. The two other parent-related protective factors for substance use, rapport and respect, were mentioned in the intervention but were not the major focus. Instead, parents were encouraged to communicate with other parents in order to monitor their children better.
Our experience proved that parents who attended the sessions were very hesitant to discuss other children's behaviors because they feared a negative reaction from those children's parents. Given the current social milieu, at least in these two Los Angeles school districts, a program with a broader and more sustained focus that addresses the entire community rather than individual parents or even small groups of parents would have been more appropriate.
Achieving independence from parents and adopting peer codes and lifestyles are the main tasks of adolescence Neinstein In this phase of development, adolescents may not have sufficient alternative emotional support and may be more vulnerable to pressures to use substances. Rapport, a measure of family closeness and communication, was protective possibly because a closer parent-child relationship mitigates the striving for independence or balances external influences to use substances.
High parent-child rapport may indicate that children spend less time with peers and relatively more time with adults and have a lower level of exposure to peer pressure. Higher rapport students may take a longer, steadier path to achieving independence. Early adolescence is also characterized by greater reluctance to accept parental advice or criticism Neinstein Respect measures children's perceptions of positive feedback and fairness in the treatment by parents.
Respect is protective for substance use probably because this style of management reinforces positive behaviors of youth and helps reinforce the development of identity and ego Piaget ; Erikson ; Ginott This is also consistent with the findings of many other researchers who have found that positive feedback is protective and punitive child-rearing techniques are associated with the development of substance use and deviant behavior Snyder, Dishion, and Patterson ; Patterson and Dishion ; Dishion and Loeber ; Patterson and Stouthammer-Loeber Our study documented that changes in adolescent perception of parenting behavior preceded the onset of adolescent substance use.
Prior to the onset of substance use, the levels of parent-child rapport, respect, and parental monitoring were similar among all students. These levels dropped to a greater extent among children who subsequently used substances than among those who did not. Enhancement of these three protective factors, monitoring, respect, and rapport, appears to be the most promising direction parents can take in preventing adolescent substance use.
These factors also are components of the authoritative parenting style defined by Baumrind and are associated with children's competence and resilience. In our sample, high levels of these factors were also associated with higher academic achievement, as in other studies Dornbusch et al. Participation in our program was low, so the challenge remains not only to find an effective intervention but also to find a venue that can reach all parents, particularly those whose children have lower levels of protective forces in their lives.
In the forum of an elective after-school evening program, we attracted a minority of families that probably already had high protective factors. Children whose parents did not respond reported their parents had higher levels of tobacco and alcohol use. Non-attending parents had the perception that their children's level of risky behavior was no higher than that of attending parents. In contrast, the children of nonattending parents reported higher risk behaviors and reported lower monitoring, respect, and rapport indexes.
Because intentions to attend do not translate into actual attendance, a forum that addresses the protective parenting factors and integrates an effective intervention into routine activities, such as in the workplace, or that requires parental participation is more likely to reach the highest risk populations. This would conservatively bias our study in that eliminating the highest risk students would reduce our ability to measure relationships between parenting behaviors and substance use. The dropout rate was similar in both intervention and control groups so there should not be any impact in determining the effectiveness of the program.
Had we been able to intensify our recruitment procedures, we may have had greater participation. However, for most communities with limited educational resources, greater intensity of recruitment is neither feasible nor sustainable. Given the low parental perceptions of the threat of adolescent substance use, and the negative emphasis of the program on drugs together with parents' higher perceptions of the quality of their parent-child relationship, make it doubtful that this type of program could ever elicit the full participation of parents whose children could theoretically benefit the most.
Our findings support the proposal Brown and Horowitz that efforts at adolescent substance use prevention, particularly parent involvement, should be reformulated from a risk-reduction approach to a promotion of protective factors. Videos Every Person Influences Children EPIC This grassroots organization is dedicated to helping families, schools, and communities raise children to become responsible and capable adults. The website offers overviews of the programs the organization has developed for children, teens, families, and communities.
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Introduction
Tips Positive and Corrective Feedback Learning to provide positive and corrective feedback can be helpful for building relationships. By giving feedback, we help young people assess their own actions, identify their strengths, and consider what how they can improve.
Worksheet Teaching Resources for Youth Educators - A Source Book In this online handbook, a multitude of teaching materials such as games, activities, exercises, handouts, and worksheets have been collected to help young people build communication, relationship, conflict resolution, and public speaking skills. These resources were produced by Wisconsin 4-H Youth Development. Handbook Communication Skills This lesson plan from Advocates for Youth provides young people with an opportunity to explore the differences among passive, aggressive, and assertive communication as well as practice assertive communication skills.
Lesson Plan Problem-solving with Teenagers This six-step problem-solving process from the Raising Children Network offers tips on resolving conflicts between parents and their children. Web Page Out on a Limb: A Guide to Getting Along Developed by University of Illinois Extension, this interactive site teaches children conflict resolution skills. A teacher's guide is included. Website Helping Youth Build Relationship Skills This page from ACT for Youth lists program activities and curricula that emphasize building healthy relationship skills, and includes resources designed for young people.