Longitudinal Trajectories of Youth Risk Behaviors and Family Processes: Who Influences Whom?

Rebekah Levine Coley, Boston College
Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal, University of Pittsburgh
Holly Schindler, Boston College

Addressing current debates concerning bidirectional influences between parents and children, this paper examines whether fathers’ and mothers’ parenting practices and family structure predict adolescents’ trajectories of substance use and sexual activity and similarly, whether adolescent risk behaviors predict trajectories of parenting and family processes. Employing 6 waves of data from a subsample of adolescents from the NLSY97 (N = 3780), hierarchical generalized non-linear models found that fathers’ parenting, family routines, and family structure predicted trajectories of adolescent risk behaviors. Moreover, adolescent risk behaviors, particularly substance use, predicted trajectories of decreasing parental involvement over time. Differences by child gender and family structure were also assessed. Results suggest that parent-adolescent relationships are indeed a two-way street. Although more involved and structured parenting, particularly from fathers, may help dissuade adolescents from initiating engagement in risky behaviors, parents also appear to abdicate their parental roles in the face of increased adolescent problem behaviors.