Parents completed a survey with measures of the adapted PWM factors, parenting factors , and personal characteristics . The study aims were to: evaluate the descriptive characteristics of parent past discussions of unhealthy eating and marijuana use with their child; test the associations of attachment styles, parenting styles, parent-child communication, perceived risks of unhealthy eating and marijuana use, prototypes of unhealthy eating and marijuana use, self-efficacy of unhealthy eating and marijuana use, coherence of unhealthy eating and marijuana use, worry of unhealthy eating and marijuana use, intentions of unhealthy eating and marijuana use, willingness of unhealthy eating and marijuana use, and past discussion behavior of unhealthy eating and marijuana use; and to test for child age-group differences in parent discussions of unhealthy eating and marijuana use. Given the exploratory nature of the model-testing aims, this cross sectional survey assessed PWM predictors of past discussion behavior which, in light of high consistency in health behaviors over time , is expected to be a reasonably valid proxy for future discussion behavior for the purposes of model development.For Aim 1, we tested the hypothesis that parents were less likely to report past discussions of unhealthy eating and marijuana use with their child. For Aim 2, we tested hypotheses that: lower attachment anxiety and lower attachment avoidance will be associated with higher authoritative parenting style, whereas higher attachment anxiety and higher attachment avoidance will be associated with higher authoritarian parenting style and higher permissive parenting style; higher authoritative parenting style will be associated with higher parent-child communication compared to lower attachment anxiety, lower attachment avoidance, lower authoritarian parenting style, and lower permissive parenting style; higher authoritative parenting style and higher parent-child communication will be associated with higher self-efficacy of unhealthy eating and marijuana use compared to lower authoritarian parenting style and lower permissive parenting style; higher parental perceived risks of harms of unhealthy eating and marijuana use, and negative prototypes of unhealthy eating and marijuana use will be associated with higher coherence and higher worry about their child eating unhealthy and using marijuana; higher self-efficacy, drying rack cannabis higher coherence, and higher worry will be associated with higher intentions and higher willingness of unhealthy eating and marijuana use discussions with one’s child; and higher intentions and higher willingness will be associated with higher levels of past discussions about unhealthy eating and marijuana use with child.
Lastly for Aim 3, we tested the hypothesis that parents would be more likely to discuss unhealthy eating with younger children as compared with discussing marijuana use with older children.Table 1e presents the zero-order correlations for the measures of parent-child communication, perceived risks of unhealthy eating, negative prototypes of unhealthy eating, self-efficacy of unhealthy eating, coherence of unhealthy eating, worry of unhealthy eating, intentions of unhealthy eating, willingness of unhealthy eating, and past discussion of unhealthy eating with child. For unhealthy eating, parent-child communication exhibited positive correlations with negative prototypes, worry, intentions, willingness, and past discussion behavior. Perceived risks of unhealthy eating was positively correlated with self-efficacy, coherence, worry, intentions, willingness, and past discussion. Negative prototypes of unhealthy eating were positively correlated with worry, willingness, and past discussion. Self-efficacy of unhealthy eating was positively correlated with coherence, worry, intentions, and past discussion. Worry of unhealthy eating correlated positively with intentions, willingness, and past discussion. Intentions and willingness of unhealthy eating were positively associated with one another and both were positively correlated with past discussion behavior. Table 1f presents the zero-order correlations for the measures of parent-child communication, perceived risks of marijuana use, negative prototypes of marijuana use, self-efficacy of marijuana use, coherence of marijuana use, worry of marijuana use, intentions of marijuana use, willingness of marijuana use, and past discussion of marijuana use with child.
For marijuana use, parent-child communication exhibited positive correlations with negative prototypes, self-efficacy, worry, intentions, and past discussion behavior. Perceived risks of marijuana use was positively correlated with negative prototypes, self-efficacy, coherence, worry, intentions, willingness, and past discussion. Negative prototypes of marijuana use were positively correlated with self efficacy, coherence, worry, intentions, willingness, and past discussion. Self-efficacy of marijuana use was positively correlated with coherence, worry, intentions, willingness, and past discussion. Coherence of marijuana use was positively correlated with worry and willingness. Worry of marijuana use correlated positively with intentions, willingness, and past discussion. Lastly, intentions and willingness of marijuana use were positively associated with one another and both were positively correlated with past discussion behavior.Next, regression analyses were conducted on the model paths for the variables of parent-child communication, self-efficacy of unhealthy eating, coherence of unhealthy eating, worry of unhealthy eating, intentions of unhealthy eating, willingness of unhealthy eating, and past discussion behavior of unhealthy eating with child. Each analysis included all proximal and distal variables in the model that were predicted to have direct or indirect paths with the dependent measure. The analysis was repeated, taking out the non-significant variable with the lowest beta coefficient, until the model included only significant predictor variables. Table 1g presents the results of the regression analyses for unhealthy eating measures. Higher authoritative parenting style and lower authoritarian parenting style were associated with higher self-efficacy of unhealthy eating. Higher perceived risks of harms of unhealthy eating was associated with higher coherence of unhealthy eating and higher worry of unhealthy eating. While, more negative prototypes of unhealthy eating were associated with higher worry of unhealthy eating. Higher authoritative parenting style and higher worry about unhealthy eating were associated with higher intentions to discuss unhealthy eating with child. Higher parent-communication, higher perceived risks of harms of unhealthy eating, more negative prototypes of unhealthy eating, and higher worry of unhealthy eating were associated with higher willingness to discuss unhealthy eating with child. Lastly, higher authoritative parenting style, higher authoritarian parenting style, higher parent-child communication, more negative prototypes of unhealthy eating, higher self-efficacy of unhealthy eating, and higher intentions of unhealthy eating were associated with higher levels of past discussion of unhealthy eating with child.Similarly, regression analyses were conducted on the model paths for the variables of parent-child communication, self-efficacy of marijuana use, coherence of marijuana use, worry of marijuana use, intentions of marijuana use, willingness of marijuana use, and past discussion behavior of marijuana use with child. Each analysis included all proximal and distal variables in the model that were predicted to have direct or indirect paths with the dependent measure. The analysis was repeated, taking out the non-significant variable with the lowest beta coefficient, until the model included only significant predictor variables. Table 1h presents the results of the regression analyses for the marijuana use measures. Higher authoritative parenting style was associated with higher self-efficacy of marijuana use. Higher perceived risks of harms of marijuana use and more negative prototypes of marijuana users were associated with higher coherence of marijuana use. Higher perceived risks of harms of marijuana use was associated with higher worry of marijuana use. Higher parent-child communication, higher perceived risks of harms of marijuana use, higher coherence of marijuana use, and higher worry about marijuana use were associated with higher intentions to discuss marijuana use with child. Higher self efficacy of marijuana use was associated with higher willingness to discuss marijuana use with child. In addition, higher parent-child communication, higher perceived risks of harms of marijuana use, how to cure cannabis fast higher self-efficacy of marijuana use, higher coherence of marijuana use, and higher intentions of marijuana use were associated with higher levels of past discussion of marijuana use with child.The two sets of analyses testing the adapted PWM for parental discussions of unhealthy eating and marijuana use with one’s child yielded somewhat consistent patterns across the two behaviors and that provides support for the proposed model.
Figures 1c and 1d illustrate the patterns of significant relationships yielded by these analyses for unhealthy eating and marijuana use. The figures include significant paths, non-significant paths, and unpredicted significant paths. Lastly, Figures 1e and 1f illustrate the final model for all significant paths for unhealthy eating and marijuana use. The common significant paths for both unhealthy eating and marijuana use included: higher authoritative parenting style was associated with higher self-efficacy; higher perceived risks of harms was associated with higher coherence and higher worry; higher worry was associated with higher intentions; and higher parent-child communication, higher self-efficacy, and higher intentions were associated with higher levels of past discussion of behavior. The significant paths for unhealthy eating included : lower authoritarian parenting style was associated with higher self efficacy of unhealthy eating; more negative prototypes of unhealthy eating were associated with higher worry of unhealthy eating; higher authoritative parenting style was associated with higher intentions to discuss unhealthy eating with child; higher parent-communication, higher perceived risks of harms of unhealthy eating, more negative prototypes of unhealthy eating, and higher worry of unhealthy eating were associated with higher willingness to discuss unhealthy eating with child; and higher authoritative parenting style, higher authoritarian parenting style, and more negative prototypes of unhealthy eating were associated with greater past discussion of unhealthy eating with child. The significant paths for marijuana use included : more negative prototypes of marijuana users was associated with higher coherence of marijuana use; higher parent-child communication, higher perceived risks of marijuana use, and higher coherence of marijuana use were associated with higher intentions to discuss marijuana use with child; higher self-efficacy of marijuana use was associated with higher willingness to discuss marijuana use with child; and higher perceived risks of harms of marijuana use and higher coherence of marijuana use were associated with greater past discussion of marijuana use with child.This study initially gathers information on the extent of parental discussions of unhealthy eating and marijuana use with their children . Descriptive analyses revealed that, of the past discussions about unhealthy eating and marijuana use, parents’ reported greater ratings of encouraging child to eat healthy or not use marijuana; telling child to eat healthy or not use marijuana; and discussing the negative consequences of unhealthy eating and marijuana use. Of importance is that more than half of parents did not discuss the behaviors of unhealthy eating or marijuana use in the past 6 months. By supporting our hypothesis that parents were less likely to report past discussions of unhealthy eating and marijuana use with their child, this extends the possible benefits of developing discussion tools that would provide parents with guidance on how to have these discussions with their children. Next, this study provides new evidence about the proposed relationships of the extended PWM framework on parental discussions of unhealthy eating and marijuana use . The study focused on the associations of attachment styles, parenting styles, parent-child communication, perceived risks, prototypes, self-efficacy, coherence, worry, intentions, willingness, and past discussions of unhealthy eating and marijuana use with one’s child. The findings, which yielded patterns of relationships that were mostly in line with the adapted PWM predictions, further replicate and extend prior research in several ways. First, the association of attachment styles and parenting styles adds an interesting adaptation to the model. For instance, lower levels of attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance were associated with higher authoritative parenting, while higher levels of attachment anxiety were associated with more authoritarian and permissive parenting. This parallels previous literature on the relationship of higher levels of secure attachment and authoritative parenting style , and between higher levels of attachment anxiety and authoritarian and permissive parenting styles . There was not a significant relationship between greater attachment avoidance and authoritarian and permissive parenting styles. Authoritative parenting was a significant predictor of parent child communication, whereas attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, and permissive parenting were not. Several studies have found a positive association between authoritative parenting and increased open parent-child communication about problems .On the contrary, higher levels of authoritarian parenting were also associated with more parent-child communication. It could be that authoritarian parents are also inclined to talk to their kids about risky behaviors, but perhaps they are doing so in potentially harmful or ineffective ways, and may benefit from tools on how to effectively engage in these discussions. Consistent with hypotheses, higher authoritative parenting was associated with higher self-efficacy of unhealthy eating and marijuana use. Other studies have also found a parallel association with authoritative parents often times displaying more confidence in dealing with challenges their child faces as compared with authoritarian and permissive parents .