Parental monitoring and supervision of a child's behaviors in and out of the home have been identified in a number of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies as factors that are strongly associated with early drug use initiation and later, more problematic use. Although there is evidence to suggest that parent monitoring plays a causal role in the development of drug use, it is important to begin to examine factors that influence parent monitoring itself. This is particularly important for intervention trials targeting parent monitoring, which require a large investment and are likely to be more successful if an appreciation of the determinants of parent monitoring are understood. The focus of the present study is to examine the potential role of parental drug use and psychiatric symptomatology on parenting behavior and more specifically, parent monitoring. Telephone interviews are being conducted with parents of 823 8-11 year old children. These children originally participated in a concurrent prospective study of the developmental outcome of children of low birthweight sampled from urban and suburban Detroit hospitals. When these children were six, they completed neuropsychologic testing and neurologic examinations. The NIMH-DIS was used to measure DSM-IIIR psychiatric and substance abuse disorders in the mother. In addition, maternal IQ, family demographic characteristics, family psychiatric history, and family social environment were measured. These children are being re-interviewed as they reach age 11 to assess involvement in drug use and suspected risk factors. By collaborating in this study and adding the assessment of parent monitoring, there is an opportunity to: 1) replicate previous studies on the role of parent monitoring on child's drug use, and 2) to examine prospectively factors that have influenced present-day level of parent monitoring. Statistical analyses will be conducted to compare level of parenting across strata of the measures that were obtained four years previously, namely parent drug use and psychiatric symptomatology, and then to determine the subsequent relationship of parent monitoring to the child's drug use initiation. To date, 350 of the interviews have been completed.
