Support was found for the hypothesis that substance use would be elevated among early maturing girls (e.g. Biehl et al., 2007; Chung et al., 2005; Lanza & Collins, 2002). Late maturing girls had lower levels of substance use than early maturing girls and early maturing girls reported poorer quality relationships with their parents. However, the findings of the present study suggest that late maturing girls’ substance use and parent-child relationship quality are related in interesting ways over time that was not evident for the other groups to the same extent. Specifically, parent-child relationship quality was more strongly associated with increased cigarette use among late maturing girls. In addition, a trend-like effect was noted whereby the relationship between alcohol use and parent-child relationship quality assessed twelve months later was stronger for late maturing girls. Such a finding possibly reflects parent expectations about late maturing girls’ behaviour in relation to their physical appearance.
