THE RELIGIOUS CONTEXT OF PARENTING, FAMILY PROCESSES, AND ALCOHOL USE IN EARLY ADOLESCENCE

Personal religiosity has been identified as a protective factor against adolescent use and misuse of alcohol. Less is known about the influence of the religious context of parenting on the drinking behavior of adolescents. This study addresses this gap by investigating how religious context of parenting is related to marital relationship, parenting practice, child-parent bonding, and alcohol use and misuse in early adolescence. Through a structural equation modeling analysis of the data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, this study finds that the religious context of parenting is negatively related to prevalence of alcohol use, frequency of alcohol consumption, and frequency of heavy drinking among early adolescents. In addition to its direct effect on adolescent drinking behavior, religious context of parenting appears to inhibit alcohol use and misuse indirectly by decreasing interparental conflict and increasing effective parenting and child-parent relationship.