The Impact of Parenting Strategies on Child Smoking Behavior: The Role of Child Self-Esteem Trajectory

Multidisciplinary research has documented that parenting strategies influence children’s cigarette use. Extending the extant literature, this article develops an integrative model that examines the effect of parenting strategies on children’s smoking progression, in which children’s self-esteem plays the role of mediator. The authors validate this model using longitudinal panel data from parents and children ages 10–17. The primary findings are that parenting strategies influence children’s smoking development and that the impact of these strategies is mediated by the child’s self-esteem trajectory, particularly for the rate of increase in smoking. Parental responsiveness decreases children’s smoking development by enhancing the child’s initial self-esteem and reducing the natural rate of deterioration in self-esteem, while psychological control increases smoking development both directly and indirectly by reducing initial self-esteem. Targeting parents through multimedia ad campaigns to bring about changes in parenting strategies to reduce or avoid teen smoking offers a fruitful complementary tool to targeting teens themselves. Such campaigns should also emphasize avoiding parental psychological control as a strategy and begin reaching parents well before their children approach late grade school.