Anti-tobacco socialization in homes of African-American and white parents,and smoking and nonsmoking parents

Purpose: To examine parental perceptions and behaviors with regard to teen smoking, comparing African-American and white parents, and those who did an d did not smoke. Methods: Focus groups consisting of African-American and white parents who smoked provided initial in-depth information. A computer-assisted telephone survey of a biracial sample of 311 parents of children ages 8 to 17 years provided more generalizable information regarding parental beliefs and beha viors. Results: Nearly 50% of households either allowed teen smoking, had no groun d rules, or had set restrictive rules but never communicated them to the ch ildren. Compared to white parents, African-American parents felt more empow ered to affect their children's behaviors and were more likely to actively participate in anti-tobacco socialization within the home (all p values < 0 .01). Among the African-American parents, 98% reported 18 years or older to be an appropriate age for teens to make up their own minds about using tob acco, whereas 26% of white parents thought 16 years to be an appropriate ag e (p < 0.001). Parents who smoked reported more frequent rule-making than t hose who did not smoke (p = 0.02), but were more likely to believe that chi ldhood tobacco use is inevitable (p = 0.01). Conclusions: Many parents are not engaged in anti-tobacco socialization in the home. Differences in the degree of parental participation may contribut e to the variance in smoking prevalence between African-American and white children. (C) Society for Adolescent Medicine, 1999.