PARENT DRUG-USE AND BONDING TO PARENTS AS PREDICTORS OF SUBSTANCE USEIN CHILDREN OF SUBSTANCE-ABUSERS

The social development model (Catalano and Hawkins 1996) hypothesizes that strong bonds to prosocial others and institutions contribute to p rosocial behavior, while strong beads to antisocial others and institu tions contribute to antisocial behavior. Consistent with this perspect ive, previous research indicates that bonding to parents and child sub stance use are negatively associated for children of non-substance abu sers but are negligibly or positively associated for children of subst ance abusers. This paper examines the interactive relationship between parent drug use, bonding to parents, and child substance use in a lon gitudinal study of families headed by substance abusers in methadone t reatment for opiate addiction. Bonding to parents and child substance use are moderately negatively correlated in children whose parents cea sed using drugs but are weakly positively correlated in children whose parents continued using drugs. These results support the social devel opment model and suggest that family interventions for preventing subs tance use in children of substance abusers should focus on reducing pa rent drug use and promote bonding to parents who are abstinent.