Normal early childhood development is a very important social determinant of health. It is, therefore; imperative that early childhood development be as healthy and normal as possible, aided by efficient parenting. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, due to problems within the family structure. One such complication is that of alcoholism among parents. As will be addressed, alcoholic parents can have a very negative effect on early childhood development. In turn, complications in early childhood development can have a lifelong effect on emotional and social health and well-being. This means that alcoholic parents can cast a long shadow over their children's entire life, which emphasizes the seriousness of the problem. As we will discuss, the evidence is crystal clear that being the offspring of an alcoholic implicates a range of associated problems, including raising the chance of physical and mental abuse. In turn, this is apt to negatively impact childhood development, and to be a noteworthy long term determinant of impaired social, emotional and psychological health.
Alcohol abuse is one of a variety of substance abuses. A lot of the literature on substance abuse doesn't differ between particular kinds of substances that are abused. Additionally, more research has been done on drug abuse than on alcohol abuse, even though the latter affects far more families. Nevertheless, it is usually safe to infer that the documented effects of substance abuse in general may be applied to the abuse of alcohol (Hayden, 2004). Locke and Newcomb (2004) state that, "Adverse childhood experiences influence later drug use. Individuals maltreated as children often report subsequent drug use. .
There are also relationships between parents' substance use and later abuse of substances by their children Some suggest that a generally dysfunctional and negative home environment plays an important role, especially when combined with childhood maltreatment or substance abuse " (Locke and Newcomb, 2004, p.