Paternal alcoholism and toddler noncompliance.
BACKGROUND
This study examined the effect of fathers' alcoholism and associated risk factors on toddler compliance with parental directives at 18 and 24 months of age.


METHODS
Participants were 215 families with 12-month-old children, recruited through birth records, who completed assessments of parental substance use, family functioning, and parent-child interactions at 12, 18, and 24 months of child age. Of these families, 96 were in the control group, 89 families were in the father-alcoholic-only group, and 30 families were in the group with two alcohol-problem parents. Child compliance with parents during cleanup situations after free play was measured at 18 and 24 months. The focus of this paper is on four measures of compliance: committed compliance, passive noncompliance, overt resistance, and defiance.


RESULTS
Sons of alcohol-problem parents exhibited higher rates of noncompliance compared with sons of nonalcoholic parents. Sons in the two-alcohol-problem parent group seemed to be following a trajectory toward increasing rates of noncompliance. Daughters in the two-alcohol-problem parent group followed an opposite pattern. Other risk factors associated with parental alcohol problems also predicted compliance, but in unexpected ways.


CONCLUSIONS
Results indicate that early risk for behavioral undercontrol is present in the toddler period among sons of alcoholic fathers, but not among daughters.
Das Eiden
R
R
Research Institute on Addictions, and Department of Pediatrics, State University of New York at Buffalo, New York, USA. eiden@ria.buffalo.edu
Leonard
K E
KE
Morrisey
S
S
D000437:Alcoholism / Q000523:psychology*; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005219:Father-Child Relations; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D016487:Parenting; D012727:Sex Characteristics