Age 3 Behavior Can Predict Teen Drinking

By monitoring children’s behavior at age 3, U.S. researchers can predict whether they will use alcohol and illicit drugs in adolescence, a study finds.

Researchers at Idaho State University, Michigan State University and the University of Michigan tracked 514 children of alcoholics and matched control families over the past decade.

From the time the children were 3 to 5 years old, trained interviewers rated the preschoolers’ ability to control their impulses and behavior — behavioral control — and flexibly adapt their self-control to environmental demands — resiliency.

They continued to evaluate these behaviors every three years thereafter until the participants reached 12 to 14. Once the children were adolescents, the teens themselves provided information on their drinking and drug use.

The researchers found behavioral control and resiliency predicted the onset of alcohol and illicit drug use in adolescence, according to the study published in the July/August issue of the journal Child Development.

The researchers also found that while having an alcoholic parent significantly increased the risk of early use of alcohol and subsequent alcohol problems, it didn’t increase the likelihood of illicit drug use.