Family Structure and Discrepant Parenting as a Context for College Student Alcohol Consumption

Alcohol use in youth populations remains a major public health concern, especially among college students. While specific parenting practices, such as alcohol use modeling or monitoring of adolescent behaviors, may influence outcomes, parenting style is consistently reported as protecting youth from both heavy alcohol use and negative consequences from drinking. However, there is little evidence to support how outcomes may be influenced if an adolescent’s parents have differential, or discrepant, parenting styles. Furthermore, family structure is widely regarded as a risk factor for youth, as parental divorce or separation is associated with increased alcohol use in adolescence and in college. The present study seeks to address (1) how parenting styles and discrepancies impact college student alcohol use and outcomes, and (2) how the prediction of outcomes by styles and discrepancies may differ across family structure. We surveyed a sample of 288 students at a mid-sized, public university in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Overall, results reinforce that authoritative parenting can buffer alcohol use and consequences in college populations. Further, findings imply that discrepancies in parenting style may uniquely predict alcohol-related outcomes in college, particularly in families where parents do not live together. Future research should seek to extend this work to younger and more diverse populations and explore the longitudinal influences of parenting style over time across risk behaviors.