Relation of parental support and control to adolescents' externalizing symptomatology and substance use: a longitudinal examination of curvilinear effects.

Past research has generated inconsistent findings regarding the relation of parental control and support to adolescent problem behaviors. Using two waves of data collected 1 year apart, the current study examined the influence of parental control and support on adolescents' externalizing symptoms, alcohol use, and illicit substance use. A sample of adolescents and their parents (N = 454) was studied, within which approximately half of the adolescents were at high risk because of parental alcoholism. Multiple-regression analyses of cross-sectional data showed a negative quadratic relation between parental control and adolescent externalizing symptomatology, and between parental control and adolescent illicit substance use. Parental control had a negative linear relation to adolescent alcohol use. Parental support showed a negative quadratic relation to adolescent illicit substance use, and negative linear relations to adolescent alcohol use and externalizing symptoms. Although longitudinally adjusted contemporaneous results were consistent with cross-sectional findings, parental support and control were prospectively related only to adolescent alcohol use. The quadratic relations suggest that adolescents who receive either extreme of parental support or control are at risk for problem behaviors.