Impulsive preschoolers at risk for teen drinking

How preschoolers behave may help predict whether they will drink alcohol or use illegal drugs like marijuana in adolescence, research hints.

In a long-term study, children who had less control over their behavior and impulses between 3 and 5 years of age and those who gained behavioral control more slowly were more likely to drink alcohol at age 14. They were also more likely to develop an alcohol problem and try illicit drugs.

Moreover, adolescents with higher resiliency in early childhood—meaning they were flexible and could readily adapt to a changing environment—were less apt to start drinking alcohol in the early teenage years.

These findings, reported in the journal Child Development, are “very important because we know that early drinking (at age 14 or earlier) is associated with a greater likelihood for alcohol abuse or dependence in adulthood,” Dr. Maria M. Wong from Idaho State University said in a statement from the Society for Research in Child Development.

“If early childhood behaviors such as behavioral control and resiliency put individuals at risk for alcohol and drug use, then programs aimed at changing those behaviors at an early age may protect individuals from experimenting with drugs and alcohol later on,” she added.

Wong and colleagues examined the “developmental trajectories” of behavioral control and resiliency from early childhood to adolescence and their effects on early substance use in 514 children of alcoholics and a similar group of children without an alcoholic parent.

From the time the children were 3 to 5 years of age to the time they reached 12 to 14 years of age, trained interviewers periodically rated the children’s ability to control their impulses and behavior, and their flexibility in adapting to environmental demands. Once the children were adolescents, they provided information on their drinking and drug use.

According to Wong’s team, about one half of all the teens reported some form of substance use during adolescence. Specifically, a little more than 44 percent began to drink by age 14. Between 12 and 17 years of age, 41 percent reported having been drunk at least once, 40 percent experienced one or more alcohol-related problems, and 58 percent reported using drugs other than alcohol.

Not surprisingly, having an alcoholic parent markedly increased the risk of early alcohol use and subsequent alcohol-related problems. Children of alcoholics were three times more likely to start drinking by age 14 and four times more likely to report having been drunk at least once by age 17 than those who were not from an alcoholic family.

However, children of alcoholics were not more likely than the other children to begin using other illicit drugs by age 17.

After subtracting out the effect of parental alcoholism, children with lower initial levels of behavioral control and slower development of behavioral control were much more likely to use alcohol by age 14, to report having been drunk, to have more alcohol-related problems, and to have used drugs other than alcohol.

Conversely, children with higher initial levels of resiliency in early childhood were less likely to drink and experience drunkenness at an early age. They were also less apt to show signs of sadness, anxiety, aggressiveness or delinquent behavior.

Wong and colleagues believe it’s important to understand the antecedents of early alcohol use by teenagers. It is possible that lower initial levels of behavioral control and resiliency, as well as slower development of behavioral control over time, “may be important risk factors for problematic substance use in late adolescence or early adulthood.”

SOURCE: Child Development, July/August 2006.

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