Parenting style and smoking-specific parenting practices as predictors of adolescent smoking onset

Objective: To test whether parenting style and smoking-specific parenting practices prospectively predicted adolescent smoking. Methods: Three hundred eighty-two adolescents (age 10-17 years, initial nonsmokers, 98% non-Hispanic whites) and their parents were interviewed, with smoking also assessed 1-2 years later. Results: Adolescents from disengaged families (low acceptance and low behavioral control) were most likely to initiate smoking. Adolescents' reports of parents' smoking-related discussion was related to lowered smoking risk for adolescents with nonsmoking parents, but unrelated to smoking onset for adolescents with smoking parents. Smoking-specific parenting practices did not account for the effects of general parenting styles. Conclusions: Both parenting style and smoking-specific parenting practices have unique effects on adolescent smoking, although effects were largely confined to adolescents' reports; and for smoking-specific parenting practices, effects were confined to families with nonsmoking parents. Interventions that focus only on smoking-specific parenting practices may be insufficient to deter adolescent smoking.