Disaggregating the Distal, Proximal, and Time-Varying Effects of Parent Alcoholism on Children’s Internalizing Symptoms

Abstract

We tested whether children show greater internalizing symptoms when their parents are actively abusing alcohol. In an integrative data analysis, we combined observations over ages 2 through 17 from two longitudinal studies of children of alcoholic parents and matched controls recruited from the community. Using a mixed modeling approach, we tested whether children showed elevated mother- and child-reported internalizing symptoms (a) at the same time that parents showed alcohol-related consequences (time-varying effects), (b) if parents showed greater alcohol-related consequences during the study period (proximal effects), and (c) if parents had a lifetime diagnosis of alcoholism that predated the study period (distal effects). No support for time-varying effects was found; proximal effects of mothers' alcohol-related consequences on child-reported internalizing symptoms were found and distal effects of mother and father alcoholism predicted greater internalizing symptoms among children of alcoholic parents. Implications for the time-embedded relations between parent alcoholism and children's internalizing symptoms are discussed.

Gender Differences in the Developmental Risk of Onset of Alcohol, Nicotine, and Marijuana Use and the Effects of Nicotine and Marijuana Use on Alcohol Outcomes

“…Second, our family-informative sample mapping onto the population of children of alcoholic parent(s) who lived in largely lower middle to lower class communities allowed us to contribute to the literature of children of alcoholics. In fact, previous fi ndings from our study have been shown to be consistent with the results of at least two other longitudinal studies on community samples of children of alcoholics (Hussong et al, 2007(Hussong et al, , 2008a(Hussong et al, , 2008b(Hussong et al, , 2008c(Hussong et al, , 2010. Third, our analysis involving female-male sibling pairs made it possible to examine gender differences developmentally while controlling for important confounds such as family density of alcoholism, demographic background, and unequal sample sizes of the gender groups.…”

A Conceptual Model Predicting Internalizing Problems in Middle Childhood Among Children of Alcoholic and Nonalcoholic Fathers: The Role of Marital Aggression

“…The results from these studies indicate a greater risk of internalizing symptoms among children of alcoholics across the developmental period from toddlers (Edwards et al, 2001), preschoolers, and early-school-age children (Puttler et al, 1998) to adolescents (Chassin et al, 1999;Hussong et al, 2008). Parental depression and antisocial behavior, often comorbid with alcohol problems, are known to increase risk of children's internalizing behavior problems, either via increased genetic vulnerability or because of greater exposure to a negative caregiving environment.…”

“…Alcohol Drugs 70: [741][742][743][744][745][746][747][748][749][750]2009) T HEORIES OF THE EMERGENCE of alcohol problems indicate that alcohol abuse may be a coping mechanism for negative affect such as depression and anxiety (Colder and Chassin, 1997;Swendsen et al, 2000). Children of alcoholics are thought to be at increased risk for such internalizing problems (Hussong et al, 2008;Puttler et al, 1998), although this risk is generally lower than that for externalizing problems (Puttler et al, 1998). However, little is known about the processes involved in the association between parents' alcohol problems and children's internalizing symptoms.…”

“…Studies of alcoholism subtypes have reported the highest rates of internalizing behavior problems among children of depressed alcoholics, followed by a marginally higher risk in children of antisocial alcoholics compared with those without a comorbid diagnosis (Hussong et al, 2008;Puttler et al, 1998). Thus, it is important to consider the role of parental psychopathology when examining internalizing behavior problems among children of alcoholics.…”

Multiple imputation of missing covariate values in multilevel models with random slopes: a cautionary note

“…These models are frequently used in organizational and educational research to investigate whether relations at Level 1 (e.g., students, employees) vary across Level 2 units (e.g., classes, working teams), or in longitudinal research to assess different developmental trajectories across subjects. For example, Hochweber, Hosenfeld, and Klieme (2014) investigated the relationship between students' mathematics achievement and their math grades, and Hussong et al (2008) examined the effects of parents' alcohol abuse on the development of children's internalizing behavior.…”