What keeps kids away from substance abuse?

In a recent issue of the scholarly journal School Psychology Review is a study by researchers on factors in the lives of teenagers that contribute to the likelihood teenagers will stay away from substance abuse. The article includes a useful review of research to date. It considers the following factors, which the researchers call “assets.”

There are two aspects of school life most clearly associated with the likelihood that teenagers will avoid the abuse of drugs and alcohol: caring relationships and meaningful participation. According to research, when students have positive perceptions of school, feel they are cared about at school and feel emotionally close to their teachers, they are less prone to be involved in substance abuse. This is shown by research to be a particularly powerful factor. And when students are meaningfully involved in school and enjoy school-related activities, they are less likely to use drugs and alcohol.

Regarding peer factors, as you might guess, young people are more likely to abstain from alcohol and drugs when their peer groups support nonuse.  

A positive sense of community and perceived neighborhood safety are among the community factors associated with nonuse of substances.

It keeps coming back to this blend in parenting: Clearly communicated and courageous rules, well enforced and firmly situated on a foundation of love and positive regard. 

What about family factors? Let’s consider these one at a time.

Clear communication. We have emphasized in our efforts via the Mountain Brook Anti-Drug Coalition the need for all of us, as parents, to clearly express to our children our beliefs and our family policies about underage drinking and drug use. The communication of these beliefs and policies makes a difference. Obviously, in order to clearly communicate them, we have to have a clear idea of what they are.

Proactive family management. This requires parents to accept the reality that their own children may become involved in high-risk behavior, such as substance use. It requires us to anticipate those problems and to parent accordingly. It is about not just reacting when bad things happen, but parenting with an eye toward prevention.

Authoritative parenting style. A number of studies have looked at three parenting styles: permissive, authoritative, and authoritarian. Permissive parenting means positive, supportive feedback, but very little parental control or monitoring. The authoritarian style is characterized by lots of parental control and monitoring, but an absence of positive, supportive relationships. The authoritative style is characterized by a high level of involvement by parents, including both positive emotional support, and clear and relatively strict rules, well enforced. This style is the winner. It leads to fewer substance abuse problems in youth than do the other styles.

High monitoring and low permissiveness. Teenagers of parents who closely monitor their whereabouts (and their “who-abouts” and “what-abouts”!) and whose parents, again, have clear and well-enforced rules, are less likely to abuse substances. This, as is true with most research in this area, goes against the attitude of “supervised” underage drinking or a kind of fatalistic acceptance of the inevitability of teen drinking. Parents who take an attitude that teenage drinking is inevitable and then supervise underage drinking often find that supervised drinking actually leads to more unsupervised drinking, not less.

Positive relationship with parents. This goes back to the nature of that “authoritative” parenting style. It IS about authority — about rules and prohibitions — but equally as defining of that more successful style is the maintenance of positive, supportive, loving relationships. 

It keeps coming back to this magical blend in parenting: clearly communicated and courageous rules, well enforced, and firmly situated on a foundation of love, respect and positive regard. 

Dr. Dale Wisely is Director of Student Services at Mountain Brook Schools and has been a child and adolescent psychologist for 30 years.