Information to address the question of whether sex specific features exist in behavioral characteristics of children of substance abusing parents was gathered from the records of a large number of hospital treated youth. There was a trend for sons of substance abusing parents to have more conduct disorder diagnoses in association with severe aggressive/destructive behavior than sons of non substance abusing parents. Girls of substance abusing parents generally were more likely to have attention deficit/hyperactive, aggressive and conduct disorder problems than girls of non substance abusing parents.