Parental Anxiety, Parenting Behavior, and Infant Anxiety: Differential Associations for Fathers and Mothers

Abstract

Most studies investigating the role of parenting behavior in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety from parents to children have focused on mothers. However, recent research suggests that mothers and fathers may parent differently and may differentially affect the development of child anxiety. Theoretical models propose that anxious parents engage in more anxiety-provoking and less anxietyreducing parenting behavior than non-anxious parents. However, findings are inconsistent, possibly because most studies have not differentiated between anxiety disorders. Therefore, it remains unclear which specific anxiety disorders are linked to parenting behavior. This study examined (1) whether symptoms of specific parental anxiety disorders are linked to overinvolvement and challenging parenting behavior towards infants; and (2) the differential relationship of maternal/paternal overinvolvement and challenging parenting behavior with infant anxiety. Parents of 81 infants (10-15 months) completed the Overinvolvement and Challenging parenting behavior (CPB) scales of the Comprehensive Parenting Behavior Questionnaire, the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders-Adult version, and the Fear scale of the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised. Linear regressions showed that mothers' generalized anxiety disorder symptoms were associated with less CPB and more overinvolvement, whereas fathers' social anxiety disorder symptoms were associated with less CPB and more overinvolvement. Moreover, paternal, but not maternal, CPB was associated with less infant anxiety, and overinvolvement with more infant anxiety. Findings suggest that (1) different dimensions of paternal/maternal anxiety are linked to their parenting behavior; (2) maternal/paternal parenting behaviors are differentially associated with infant anxiety.

Examining Parents’ Romantic Attachment Styles and Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms as Predictors of Caregiving Experiences

“…The findings presented here should be considered in light of several limitations. Our inclusion of parents of both genders in this study strengthens the generalizability of our findings; however, we did not find gender differences in any of the dependent variables in our sample, which is unusual given the commonly cited gender differences in prevalence and transmission patterns of depression and anxiety (e.g., Leach, Christensen, Mackinnon, Windsor, & Butterworth, ; Möller, Majdandži&ć, & Bögels, ) as well as differences between mother–child and father–child attachment relationships (e.g., Grossmann et al., ). This leads us to believe that it will be important in future work to establish whether the patterns that we observed differ between mothers and fathers.…”

Adapting Depression and Anxiety Questionnaire for Children into Turkish: Reliability and Validity Studies

“…3; anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder and phobias. The findings of the study are as such to reveal that anxiety disorder is a disorder which is common both the children and the adolescents and adults (Ale, Mccharty, Rothschild, & Whiteside, 2015;Bruce et al, 1994;Kessler et al, 2005;Mellor, Majdandzic, & Bogels, 2015;Seçer, 2015;Wheaton, Deacon, McGrath, Berman, & Abramowitz, 2012). Sadock and Sadock (2009) asserts that the general prevalence of anxiety disorders is between 0.3% and 0.6% for ocd, 6.5% for generalized anxiety disorder, 4% for separation anxiety disorder and 2.2% for social phobia.…”

Paternal Mental Health: Why Is It Relevant?

“…85 Paternal anxiety symptoms are associated with overinvolvement and impaired parenting behaviors as early as infancy. 86 Fathers tend to be overprotective and overcontrolling of their infants' behaviors and environment to the point that the parenting becomes pathological. Fathers' overinvolved parenting style is associated with infants displaying increased levels of anxious behaviors.…”