The primary goal of this study was to consider the potentially unique roles of fathers’ and mothers’ ADS in influencing adolescent risky drinking and conduct problems, both directly and indirectly via parenting behaviors. A secondary goal was to examine potential differences in these pathways of risk based on adolescents’ ethnicity and gender. Grounded in family systems theory (Cox & Paley, 2003), we considered ADS and parenting behaviors from both fathers and mothers simultaneously to examine their unique roles, as well as the spillover and crossover effects between fathers’ and mothers’ ADS and parenting behaviors, in influencing adolescent outcomes. We hypothesized that, in addition to direct associations, fathers’ and mothers’ ADS would have indirect effects on adolescents’ risky drinking and conduct problems via a pathway marked by disruptions to their own (spillover effect) and the other parent’s (crossover effect) positive parenting behaviors. We did not have specific hypotheses regarding differences in these risk pathways across ethnicity and adolescent gender given the lack of consistent evidence from prior research.
