Despite several limitations, this study has many strengths, including the clinical assessment of ADS from fathers and mothers, the family systems approach to consider the spillover and crossover effects of fathers’ and mothers’ ADS and parenting behaviors, prospectively measured parenting behaviors and adolescent outcomes, rigorous tests of ethnic and gender differences in pathways of risk, and careful consideration of a number of important covariates. Our results suggest that fathers’ ADS put adolescents at risk for risky drinking and conduct problems, above and beyond the effects of parenting, parental education, parental antisocial personality disorder and internalizing problems, family structure, and adolescents’ age, gender, and ethnicity. Disrupted fathers’ and mothers’ parenting behaviors such as lower involvement and poor parent-child communication may serve as indirect pathways of risk associated with fathers’ ADS. Our findings emphasize the importance of considering the unique roles of fathers’ and mothers’ ADS in influencing family processes and adolescent outcomes.
