These implications should be tempered by limitations of the current study. We were unable to measure children’s actual exposure to parents’ alcohol-related consequences and the timing of this exposure directly. Thus, further study is needed to understand the role that exposure-based mechanisms play in accounting for the current pattern of findings. Limited ethnic diversity in our samples also constrains the generalizability of these findings. Previous analyses of these data showed no differences between non-Caucasian Hispanic and Caucasian youth in the effect of parent alcoholism on externalizing symptoms, but no other ethnic/racial groups were represented in these samples. Given differences in environmental stress due to factors associated with ethnicity/race, the additional impact of parent alcoholism on fluctuations in child functioning over time may vary across groups. Moreover, our assessments of externalizing symptoms rely on symptom checklists, which may not relate directly to risk for disorder, and targets the externalizing spectrum broadly. Finally, participants were initially recruited from intact families, perhaps limiting the generalizability of these findings to more disturbed families who experience early dissolution.
