Preventing adolescent substance use may need to start in early childhood
"The children of parents with alcohol problems are at much greater risk for underage drinking and developing a substance use disorder," says the study's author, Rina Das Eiden, PhD, senior research scientist at RIA. "It's important to understand when and under what circumstances such problems develop, so we can craft interventions to steer this high-risk population away from substance use and its attendant problems." Eiden examined different pathways to adolescent substance use, starting in infancy, for children of parents with alcohol use disorder (AUD), and found that maternal warmth and sensitivity in early childhood played a significant role. "When mothers can be warm and sensitive during interactions with their toddlers, even under the stresses associated with their partners' alcohol problems, there is a lower likelihood of adolescent substance use," Eiden says. Parents with AUD demonstrated lower rates of maternal sensitivity towar...