Temperament and parental child-rearing style: unique contributions to clinical anxiety disorders in childhood

Abstract

Both temperament and parental child-rearing style are found to be associated with childhood anxiety disorders in population studies. This study investigates the contribution of not only temperament but also parental child-rearing to clinical childhood anxiety disorders. It also investigates whether the contribution of temperament is moderated by child-rearing style, as is suggested by some studies in the general population. Fifty children were included (25 with anxiety disorders and 25 non-clinical controls). Child-rearing and the child's temperament were assessed by means of parental questionnaire (Child Rearing Practices Report (CRPR) (Block in The Child-Rearing Practices Report. Institute of Human Development. University of California, Berkely, 1965; The Child-Rearing Practices Report (CRPR): a set of Q items for the description of parental socialisation attitudes and values. Unpublished manuscript. Institute of Human Development. University of California, Berkely, 1981), EAS Temperament Survey for Children (Boer and Westenberg in J Pers Assess 62:537-551, 1994; Buss and Plomin in Temperament: early developing personality traits. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, Hillsdale, 1984s). Analysis of variance showed that anxiety-disordered children scored significantly higher on the temperamental characteristics emotionality and shyness than non-clinical control children. Hierarchical logistic regression analyses showed that temperament (emotionality and shyness) and child-rearing style (more parental negative affect, and less encouraging independence of the child) both accounted for a unique proportion of the variance of anxiety disorders. Preliminary results suggest that child-rearing style did not moderate the association between children's temperament and childhood anxiety disorders. The limited sample size might have been underpowered to assess this interaction.

Perceptions of Parenting, Emotional Self-Efficacy, and Anxiety in Youth: Test of a Mediational Model

“…Our conceptualization of emotional self-efficacy as an intermediary variable within the relation between parenting style and youth anxiety was based on frequently cited theoretical links between these variables, and significant findings were consistent with hypothesized relations; however, it is possible that alternative models may ultimately account for our findings. Parenting variables have been conceptualized as playing a role in youth anxiety in a variety of ways in the literature, including as moderators (e.g., Costa et al 2009;McDonald et al 2010), mediators (e.g., Costa and Weems 2005;van Gastel et al 2009;van der Bruggen et al 2010), and incremental predictors (e.g., Costa et al 2006;Lindhout et al 2009b). Research exploring alternate relations among variables under study is needed to contextualize these findings within the broader literature on familial mechanisms of youth anxiety.…”

The role of the mother–child relationship for anxiety disorders and depression: results from a prospective-longitudinal study in adolescents and their mothers

“…Particularly the role of parental rearing for offspring anxiety and depression has been extensively studied [11,14,[29][30][31][32][33][34]. While parental control was found to be more strongly associated with offspring anxiety than parental rejection, parental rejection was shown to be more strongly associated with offspring depression than parental control [29,30].…”

“…That is, valence is conceptually related to constructs such as warmth, affection, and responsiveness, while potency is conceptually related to constructs such as autonomy and low/moderate parental monitoring and control. However, child valence and potency refer to child characteristics/behaviors and this is important, since most prior studies on the mother-child relationship focused on parental characteristics/behaviors and their relation to offspring mental health [11,14,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][36][37][38][39][40]. For instance, mother-child-connectedness (which is closely related to child valence) was mostly conceptualized as the child's perception of maternal care and communication [28,54,55].…”

“…Previous research on familial and parental risk factors for anxiety and depression suggests that especially adverse parental rearing styles and unfavorable characteristics of the parent-child relationship increase the risk for offspring anxiety and depression [11,14,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. Particularly the role of parental rearing for offspring anxiety and depression has been extensively studied [11,14,[29][30][31][32][33][34].…”

Preadolescent Anxiety: An Epidemiological Study Concerning an Italian Sample of 3,479 Nine-Year-Old Pupils

“…Particular temperamental aspects, such as a general responsiveness to emotions, are important risk factors for the occurrence of this disorder in childhood [9,10]. Moreover, early adverse experiences, such as parental indifference and abuse or early mother loss, seem to predispose specific children to anxiety disorders, especially if other circumstances accompany the loss [11].…”