However, mothers’ lifetime diagnosis of alcoholism interacted with the time-varying effect of mother’s alcohol-related symptoms in predicting mother’s report of child’s externalizing symptoms (β = −0.11, t=−2.39, p=.02). (No interaction was found for the proximal effects of parents’ alcohol-related symptoms and lifetime diagnosis of alcoholism.) Probing of this interaction (following, Curran, Bauer, & Willoughby, 2006) revealed that children showed greater externalizing symptoms during those years when their mothers had higher alcohol-related symptoms (i.e., a higher time-varying effect) only if their mothers did not have a lifetime diagnosis of alcoholism (β =0.10, t=2.49, p=.01) rather than if they did (β = −0.01, t=−0.43, p=0.67). Thus, the time-varying effect of maternal alcohol-related symptoms on mothers’ report of children’s externalizing symptoms was limited to non-COAs.
