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Abstract
Parents are powerful socialization agents for children and as children reach adolescence parental role models, among other sources of influence, become particularly salient in adolescents’ decision-making regarding initiation of substance use. Open parent-adolescent communication about substances is associated with less substance use by adolescents; however, it is unclear how youth interpret antidrug use messages from their parents, especially if the parents engage in legal and/or illicit substance use themselves. Framed by social learning theory and social constructionism, this study analyzed in-depth interviews with 108 adolescents about personal experiences with substance use, family communication about substance use, and adolescent interpretations of parental use. Emergent themes in the data include: positive parental influence, parental contradictions, and negative outcomes of use. Prevalence of parental use—regardless of legality, rarity of explicit communication about parental use, and various interpretations of parental use are discussed.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank the students and schools who participated in this study. We are also grateful to the other members of the research team for their involvement with this project (M. Colby, T. Deas, A. Dossett, M. Hecht, T. Hipper, J. Moreland, J. Pettigrew, and A. Pezalla).
Notes
1 Citations refer to the assigned interview code.