Parental Expectations Affect Children's Marijuana Initiation or Resistance

Background: The self-fulfilling prophecy (SFP) suggests parents’ expectancies of their children’s substance misuse or avoidance may have positive or negative effects. Parents who assume incorreclty that their children have initiated cannabis use may be at higher risk for initiation than if the parents had assumed non-use. More controversally, the SFP suggests that children of parents who believe (incorrectly) that they are abstinent will be more likely to quit. This study tested both assumptions.

Methods: This research investigated inconsistencies between parents’ estimates and their children’s reports of marijuana use in the first year of a nationally representative panel survey, and children’s subsequent usage one year later (N = 3131). 

Results: Marijuana-abstinent adolescents in the first year (T1) of the survey were significantly more likely to initiate use over the next year if they were characterized by parents as users at T1; conversely, adolescent marijuana users at T1 were significantly less likely to continue usage in the second year if they were labeled by parents as abstinent at T1 (both p < .001). Odds that abstinent children whose parents believed they used marijuana would initiate use a year later (T2) were 4.4 times greater than those of abstinent respondents whose parents judged them abstinent. Odds of self-reported users quitting by T2 were 2.7 greater if parents believed they had not used at T1.

Conclusions: Parental expectancies were powerfully associated with children's drug initiation/cessation. Findings suggests prevention efforts pay special attention to parent-child communication, and the potential effects of improper expectations.