This competitive renewal builds on findings generated by our previous research, """"""""Mothers' Alcohol Use and Children's Victimization, (hereafter, """"""""Mothers"""""""" study) and involves interviewing mother and child pair. This study identifies women with current high alcohol involvement and adds a specific aim to the prior study. Prior finding indicated that mothers with histories of high alcohol involvement had higher levels of punitiveness toward their children and lower levels of protectiveness than mothers with histories of lower alcohol involvement. The proposed project investigates 1) how levels of mothers' current alcohol involvement affect their punitiveness and protectiveness of their children; 2) whether changes in their alcohol involvement over time affect their punitiveness and protectiveness; 3) whether mothers' behaviors (alcohol involvement, punitiveness, and protectiveness) affect their children's alcohol-related expectancies and/or children's level of alcohol/drug involvement. Women, along with one of their children between the ages of 10 and 16, will be interviewed. The following sources will be used for recruitment; a) alcoholism treatment programs (n=220); b) newspaper advertisements for (heavy) alcohol drinkers with children (n=165); and c) a randomly selected, matched (on age and geographic region) community comparison group (n=165, half matched to each group). These samples will identify women who decrease, increase, and maintain their level of alcohol involvement over the course of the study. Interviews will be conducted at six month intervals for a total of three interviews (over one year) to investigate how changes in mothers' level of alcohol involvement impact mothers' punitiveness and protectiveness. Both increases and decreases in level of mothers' alcohol involvement, and changes in the child's alcohol/drug involvement and expectancies are expected over the course of the year. Structural equation modeling (SEM) will be utilized to examine the relevant pathways between mothers alcohol involvement and their punitiveness and protectiveness. SEM will also be employed to examine the relationship among mothers alcohol involvement, punitiveness, protectiveness and children's alcohol/drug involvement. Further, mediating and moderating variables that have been conceptualized for each pathway in the model will be examined. This study addresses the lack of information out the complexities of the intergenerational transmission of alcohol involvement and family violence.
