Latino Parenting Practices: A Comparison of Parent and Child Reports of Parenting Practices and the Association with Gateway Drug Use

Abstract

Parent and adolescent self-reports are the most common sources for measuring parenting practices. This study's purpose was to compare how parent and adolescent reports of parenting behaviors differentially predict adolescent gateway drug use. The sample consisted of 252 Latino adolescent-parent dyads. After controlling for potential confounding influences, only adolescents’ reports about their parents’ parenting behaviors were significant and explained 38% of the variance in gateway drug use. Practitioners may recommend to parents seeking parenting advice that they solicit feedback from their adolescent to ensure parenting efforts are received in the manner they were intended.

KEYWORDS:

• adolescents
• gateway drugs
• Latino
• parenting

Notes

^a Adolescents (N = 252) and Primary Caregivers (N = 252).

^a Adolescents (N = 252) and primary caregivers (N = 252).

^b Concordance: [parent yes = adolescent yes + parent no = adolescent no]/total.

^a A sequential regression strategy was used in the analysis in which blocks of variables were added to the regression equation sequentially. R ² refers to the overall regression equation after each block has been entered into the model; F for change in R ² describes the contribution of each individual block.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

^a A sequential regression strategy was used in the analysis in which blocks of variables were added to the regression equation sequentially. R ² refers to the overall regression equation after each block has been entered into the model; F for change in R ² describes the contribution of each individual block.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.