The Role of Fathers in Adolescent Substance Abuse Prevention

Adolescent substance abuse has been a major problem in society for many decades. Prevention has been deemed the most successful approach for dealing with this problem. Most research on this area focuses on family and emphasizes the role of mothers as either protective factors or as risk factors. The role of the father is more ambiguously discussed. The father figure can either be a member of the biological family or of the selective family. This article looks through the lens of theory to explore the role of fathers in a family and elucidates several risk and protective factors that may influence the prevention of substance abuse in adolescents.