It has been estimated that 7.5 million, or 10.5% of children younger than the age of 18 in the United States, live with a parent who had an alcohol use disorder in the past year (SAMHSA, 2012). This is a major public health concern given the substantial evidence that offspring of parents with alcohol problems are at an elevated risk for a host of psychosocial problems (Park & Schepp, 2015). Here, we took a family systems perspective to examine parenting as a mechanism linking parental alcohol dependence symptoms (ADS) to adolescents’ risky drinking and conduct problems. Expanding upon previous research, we considered how fathers’ and mothers’ ADS might influence their own (spillover effect) as well as the other parent’s parenting behaviors (crossover effect), in relation to adolescent outcomes. We further examined whether and how these associations may vary across adolescent ethnicity and gender.
