Approaches to Preventing Early Adolescent Alcohol Use: Early Childhood Risk Factors, Drinking Motives, and Mother-Adolescent Agreement

Purpose: In the present study, both early childhood- as well as parental risk factors, adolescent drinking motives, and maternal-adolescent agreement on adolescent alcohol use are analyzed to generate approaches to prevention. Method: Data from 239 families from the longitudinal German project Future Family were collected from kindergarten age (M = 4.5 years) to adolescence (M = 14 years). Binary logistic regression models were used to calculate the relationships between mental health problems in childhood, sociodemographic conditions, parental behaviours, and children's consumption of alcohol ten years later. Results: Children of mothers with a higher level of school education and those coming from families with a higher social status had an increased risk of drinking alcohol regularly prior to reaching the legally permitted minimum age. Alcohol consumption during adolescence was primarily due to social- and reinforcement motives, whilst internalizing mental health problems proved to be a protective factor. Mothers significantly underestimated their children's alcohol consumption by a factor of four to five. Conclusion: Preventive interventions could show adolescents how they could reach social- and reinforcing motives in ways that are less risky than by drinking alcohol. To improve mothers' estimation of children's consumption behaviours, training could be offered to improve the recognition of cues indicating problematic alcohol use. The increased risk of children from families with a higher social status could be taken into account.