proximal and time-varying effects of symptomatology. Future studies that address this problem of measurement equivalence would be informative. Moreover, studies that further consider the time-scale on which parent alcoholism impacts children’s functioning are important in that they inform the search for underlying etiological processes. To the extent that distal processes dominate the effect of parent alcoholism on children’s externalizing symptoms, mechanisms that operate early and provide a stable influence over the life course should be primary targets for exploration. Moreover, such distal effects indicate that prevention efforts targeting COAs’ externalizing and internalizing symptoms per se should occur in early childhood. However, parents’ alcohol-related symptoms continue to show proximal and time-varying effects on children’s externalizing symptoms even in adolescence. Thus, the findings may suggest that family-based programs that consider the impact of parents’ alcohol-related symptoms in addressing child functioning are likely to continue to be effective over development.
