Parent-child communication, as defined in the current study, is a broad measure of communication(Riesch, Anderson, & Krueger, 2006). While ease of communication with parents reflects positively on general parent-child relationship, it does not necessarily indicate the degree to which parents know about their sons’ and daughters’ substance use behaviors (Forehand, Miller, Dutra, & Chance, 1997). Moreover, our measure does not capture the content of the parent-child communication. It is therefore unclear to what extent parents who communicate easily with their adolescents actually talk about substance use, which has been associated with reduced adolescent substance use in previous studies (e.g., Chassin et al., 2005). These findings indicate that easy parent-child communication as measured by adolescent s’ perceptions of comfort may serve as a prerequisite for positive parenting practices that could be protective against adolescent substance use. Yet easy parent-child communication alone may not be sufficient to protect all adolescents from substance use.
