have decreased the possibility of measuring reactive punishment tendencies (i.e., harsh discipline in response to child misbehavior) because children had to rate their parents above median on at least two parenting practices to be included in the more effective parenting group. An equally plausible explanation for the lack of association between density of alcoholism and parenting is that a positive score on our density of alcoholism variable did not require the presence of an alcoholic parent in the home. This may explain why better child management skills were able to co-exist within some alcohol-dense families and presumably counteract the negative effects of a positive family history of alcohol problems.
