LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON - PREDICTING MALE-ADOLESCENTS ADJUSTMENT FROM PARENTS DISTRESS AND SELF-RESTRAINT

Mothers' and fathers' own subjective distress and self-restraint when their sons were preadolescents were related to 14 measures of sons' outcomes 4 years later. A sample of 82 adolescent boys, including 55 from 2-parent families, participated. Consistent with expectations, the sons of fathers prone to low self-restraint uniformly had subsequent difficulties across domains, including poor academic achievement (e.g., low grades, truancy), poor peer relations (e.g., low emotional support and intimacy), at-risk behaviors (e.g., drug and alcohol use, multiple sexual partners, poor conflict resolution skills), and adjustment problems (e.g., symptoms of depression). In 2-parent families, the associations between mothers' adjustment and sons' outcomes became nonsignificant once differences in fathers' self-restraint were taken into account.