Beyond modeling: parenting practices, parental smoking history, and adolescent cigarette smoking

This study explored parental beliefs and behaviors designed to convey an antismoking message across levels of self-reported parent and adolescent smoking behavior. Parental self-efficacy, beliefs about smoking, the family relationship, antismoking messages, reactions to smoking, and household smoking rules were explored. Participants were 345 6th, 8th, and 10th graders (50% female; 93% White) and their parents (86% mothers). Beliefs about smoking, parental efficacy, and rules varied across levels of both parental and adolescent smoking. Parents with a history of smoking and parents of adolescents who had tried smoking were less efficacious, held weaker antismoking beliefs, and less often reported household smoking rules. Overall, examining parental behavior across levels of both parent and youth smoking is important. Similarly, parental efficacy, not previously studied in relation to parenting about smoking, may be important to target in future interventions.