Parenting Style and Adolescent Clinical Severity: Findings From Two Substance Abuse Treatment Studies

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association between authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful parenting, and clinical severity of adolescent substance abuse. Data were examined from 2 substance abuse treatment outcome studies: the Cannabis Youth Treatment (CYT) study and Project Iowa SCY. In both studies, authoritative parenting was associated with less parent-reported substance problem severity compared to neglectful parenting. In CYT, authoritative parenting was also associated with lower conduct disorder severity when compared to authoritarian and neglectful parenting. Findings were not replicated with adolescent-reported outcomes. Lower level of care recommendations are made for authoritatively parented youth when compared to those from authoritarian and neglectful homes. Additional research should rule out shared method variance explanations and investigate whether changes in parenting practices predict substance abuse treatment outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Substance abuse
• drug use
• parenting style
• adolescents

This article was supported by Substance Abuse and Mental Health and Services Administration (SAMHSA) Grant TI13354 and also uses data collected under SAMHSA's Cannabis Youth Treatment (CYT) Cooperative Agreement (Grant Nos. TI11317, TI11321, TI11323, and TI11324). The opinions are those of the author and do not reflect official positions of the government. We would like to thank the principal investigators of each of the CYT grants, as well as Nathan Gotman and Nichol Hohenbrink for their assistance with preparing this article.