Interparental Relationship Adjustment, Parenting, and Offspring's Cigarette Smoking at the 10-Year Follow-up

Familial influences on children's cigarette smoking have been established, yet little is known about whether these influences in childhood relate to offspring's smoking behavior in adolescence. Drawing on prior work showing that children's emotional and behavioral problems (i.e., internalizing and externalizing behavior problems) are influenced by both interparental and parent-child relationships, we examined whether children's emotional and behavioral problems would further predict their smoking behavior in adolescence. Two hundred and twenty-one families were followed from early childhood (M  = 4.05 years) to the 10-year follow-up. Interparental relationship adjustment and disagreement, dysfunctional parenting, and children's emotional and behavioral problems were reported by both mothers and fathers. Adolescents' self-reported cigarette smoking status was assessed along with other demographic variables. Using structural equation modeling, the hypothesis was only supported based on mothers' reports, suggesting that early couple relationship adjustment and parenting relate to children's emotional and behavioral problems, which associate with smoking behavior in adolescence. When the hypothesized model was tested with emotional and behavioral problems separately, only behavioral problems were related to adolescent smoking for both parents. Findings from this study support models of family environment and children's behavioral problems, providing evidence of the long-term links with adolescent cigarette smoking behaviors. Further family-focused research and preventive work, for instance, testing the combination of partner support and parent training, are needed.