Fearful temperament is associated with risk for the development of social anxiety disorder in childhood; however, not all fearful children become anxious. Identifying maladaptive trajectories is thus important for clarifying which fearful children are at risk. In an unselected sample of 111 two-year-olds (55% male, 95% Caucasian), Buss (2011) identified a pattern of fearful behavior, dysregulated fear, characterized by high fear in low threat situations. This pattern of behavior predicted parent- and teacher-reported withdrawn/anxious behaviors in preschool and at kindergarten entry. The current study extended original findings and examined whether dysregulated fear predicted observed social wariness with adults and peers, and social anxiety symptoms at age 6. We also examined prosocial adjustment during kindergarten as a moderator of the link between dysregulated fear and social wariness. Consistent with predictions, children with greater dysregulated fear at age 2 were more socially wary of adults and unfamiliar peers in the laboratory, were reported as having more social anxiety symptoms, and were nearly four times more likely to manifest social anxiety symptoms than other children with elevated wariness in kindergarten. Results demonstrated stability in the dysregulated fear profile and increased risk for social anxiety symptom development. Dysregulated fear predicted more social wariness with unfamiliar peers only when children became less prosocial during kindergarten. Findings are discussed in relation to the utility of the dysregulated fear construct for specifying maladaptive trajectories of risk for anxiety disorder development.

The current study tests the underlying structure of a multidimensional construct of helicopter parenting (HP), assesses reliability of the construct, replicates past relations of HP to poor emotional functioning, and expands the literature to investigate links of HP to emerging adults' decision-making and academic functioning. A sample of 377 emerging adults (66% female; ages 17-30; 88% European American) were administered several items assessing HP as well as measures of other parenting behaviors, depression, anxiety, decision-making style, grade point average, and academic functioning. Exploratory factor analysis results suggested a four-factor, 23-item measure that encompassed varying levels of parental involvement in the personal and professional lives of their children. A bifactor model was also fit to the data and suggested the presence of a reliable overarching HP factor in addition to three reliable subfactors. The fourth subfactor was not reliable and item variances were subsumed by the general HP factor. HP was found to be distinct from, but correlated in expected ways with, other reports of parenting behavior. HP was also associated with poorer functioning in emotional functioning, decision making, and academic functioning. Parents' information-seeking behaviors, when done in absences of other HP behaviors, were associated with better decision making and academic functioning.

Early social withdrawal and protective parenting predict a host of negative outcomes, warranting examination of their development. Mothers’ accurate anticipation of their toddlers’ fearfulness may facilitate transactional relations between toddler fearful temperament and protective parenting, leading to these outcomes. Currently, we followed 93 toddlers (42 female; on average 24.76 months) and their mothers (9% underrepresented racial/ethnic backgrounds) over 3 years. We gathered laboratory observation of fearful temperament, maternal protective behavior, and maternal accuracy during toddlerhood and a multi-method assessment of children’s social withdrawal and mothers’ self-reported protective behavior at kindergarten entry. When mothers displayed higher accuracy, toddler fearful temperament significantly related to concurrent maternal protective behavior and indirectly predicted kindergarten social withdrawal and maternal protective behavior. These results highlight the important role of maternal accuracy in linking fearful temperament and protective parenting, which predict further social withdrawal and protection, and point to toddlerhood for efforts of prevention of anxiety-spectrum outcomes.

Maternal protective responses to temperamentally fearful toddlers have previously been found to relate to increased risk for children’s development of anxiety-spectrum problems. Not all protective behavior is “overprotective,” and not all mothers respond to toddlers’ fear with protection. Therefore, the current study aimed to identify conditions under which an association between fearful temperament and protective maternal behavior occurs. Participants included 117 toddlers and their mothers, who were observed in a variety of laboratory tasks. Mothers predicted their toddlers’ fear reactions in these tasks and reported the importance of parent-centered goals for their children’s shyness. Protective behavior displayed in low-threat, but not high-threat, contexts related to concurrently observed fearful temperament and to mother-reported shy/inhibited behavior one year later. The relation between fearful temperament and protective behavior in low-threat, but not high-threat, contexts was strengthened by maternal accuracy in anticipating children’s fear and maternal parent-centered goals for children’s shyness.

Previous research has suggested that mothers' behaviors may serve as a mechanism in the development from toddler fearful temperament to childhood anxiety. The current study examined the maternal characteristic of accuracy in predicting toddlers' distress reactions to novelty in relation to temperament, parenting, and anxiety development. Ninety-three two-year-old toddlers and their mothers participated in the study. Maternal accuracy moderated the relation between fearful temperament and protective behavior, suggesting this bidirectional link may be more likely to occur when mothers are particularly attuned to their children's fear responses. An exploratory moderated mediation analysis supported the mechanistic role of protective parenting in the relation between early fearful temperament and later anxiety. Mediation only occurred, however, when mothers displayed high accuracy. Results are discussed within the broader literature of parental influence on fearful children's development.Keywords parent-child relations; parents/parenting; temperament; toddlers; anxiety Children's early fearful temperament (i.e., behavioral inhibition; Kagan, Reznick, Clarke, Snidman, & Garcia-Coll, 1984) has been consistently linked to the development of anxiety and related problems (Biederman, Hirshfield-Becker, Rosenbaum, Herot, & Friedman, 2001;Schwartz, Snidman, & Kagan, 1999). Recent research has suggested that fearful temperament may elicit anxiogenic parenting (e.g., overprotection, intrusiveness), which then serves as a mechanism for future anxiety development. Anxiety prevention and intervention efforts would therefore benefit from better identifying mother-child dyads prone to this harmful mutual influence. Available evidence suggests that mothers' perceptions of their children's temperament predict parenting behaviors (Rubin, Nelson, Hastings, & Asendorpf, 1999) and strengthen the relation between temperament and parenting (Ghera, Hane, Malesa, & Fox, 2006). Relatively little is known, however, about the accuracy of mothers' perceptions and how individual differences in this accuracy affect the link between fearful temperament and parent behaviors. We previously investigated this maternal characteristic of accuracy in anticipating children's reactions to a variety of situations (Kiel & Buss, 2006 NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript study focuses on maternal accuracy for novel situations, examining its effect on the association between fearful temperament and both protective and intrusive parenting behaviors. The current study also examined an exploratory model in which accuracy affects how maternal behavior mediates the development from fearful temperament to anxiety. Parenting Behaviors Linked to Fearful Temperament and AnxietyParenting behaviors have been linked to both adaptive and maladaptive child development. Of particular relevance to the development of anxiety are parents' interactions with their children during fear-provoking or potentially threatening situations. Ka...