MOTHERS PARENTING BEHAVIOR AND CHILD MENTAL-HEALTH IN FAMILIES WITH A PROBLEM DRINKING PARENT

Structural equation modeling was used to test the mediational roles of mothers' supportive parenting and inconsistent discipline in the parent problem drinking-child mental health relationship. Data were collected from 303 families with young adolescent children. Data for Hispanic families were analyzed separately because of nonequivalence of correlation matrices. In both analyses, parent problem drinking was related to higher levels of negative life events which in turn were related to less supportive parenting and more inconsistent discipline. Supportive parenting was related to better child mental health for both groups of mothers. Inconsistent discipline was related to higher levels of depression only for children of the non-Hispanic mothers. In the non-Hispanic sample, parent problem drinking had only a weak and indirect relationship to child mental health. In the Hispanic sample, this relationship was nonsignificant.