The Behavior of Anxious Parents: Examining Mechanisms of Transmission of Anxiety From Parent to Child

Abstract

Examined the behavior of anxious parents in interactions with their children (ages 6 to 12 years) to test hypotheses about possible psychosocial mechanisms of transmission of anxiety from parent to child. Fifty-one parent-child dyads completed the study. Parents and children were assessed with structured interviews and participated in 2 tasks that were videotaped and coded. Twenty-five dyads had an anxious parent. Primary diagnoses of the anxious group were mostly panic disorder (PD), with or without agoraphobia (AG), social phobia (SP), and generalized anxiety disorder. Anxious participants were excluded if they presented a secondary diagnosis other than another anxiety disorder. Control parents had no present or past diagnosis. Observational data revealed that anxious parents were significantly less productively engaged and more withdrawn and disengaged during the interactions but did not differ from nonanxious parents in terms of overall levels of control. Sequential analyses indicated that there was a trend for both parent group and child sex to effect efforts to control the interaction in response to child expression of negative affect. Implications of these results for a mediational role of parental behavior in the development and maintenance of child anxiety are discussed.

Exploring the connection between parental trait anxiety and adolescent emotional intelligence.

“…This supposition is again supported by the work of Rutherford (2003) and Woodruff-Borden et al (2002) who both suggested that having a parent model acceptance of both negative and positive emotions rather than just the latter is an important demonstration for children to develop their own methods of coping and management. Both of these sets of researchers found that anxious mothers were less comfortable with their children's negative emotion and so were more intent on stopping them than assisting the children with working through them.…”

“…through genetics (see Barlow, 2002); the reinforcement of anxious behaviours through parenting practices, whether done purposely or inadvertently (Fonagy, 2001;Hart, 2011;Hughes, 2009;Woodruff-Borden, Morrow, Bourland, & Cambron, 2002); and the modelling of anxious behaviours (Saarni, 1999). Each of these factors has the potential to influence a child's emotional development.…”

“…Based on these collective observations, it seems likely that it is in negotiating the level of interaction as well as in the quality of interaction that parental anxiety may have a negative effect on attachment, a possibility supported by Karen (1998) and Goleman (2006) who posited that mothers who are anxious tend to be less attuned to their children's needs, leading some children to then become more anxious and clingy themselves and less able to attune to others in the future. The observation that anxiety-disordered parents interact less frequently with their children than non-anxious controls may also negatively influence the attachment relationship with their children (Woodruff-Borden et al, 2002).…”

“…This supportive role is also accomplished through various parenting practices (referred to as such regardless of the actual relationship of the caregiver to the child) that have been studied and identified as negatively impacted by a caregiver's anxiety. Woodruff-Borden et al (2002) posited that, as a result of having had little assistance in learning to cope with stressors, children of anxious parents would be less prepared to effectively deal with stressful situations. To reach this conclusion, the team assessed 57 parent-child dyads using both surveys and observational techniques wherein the pairs had to complete two tasks together.…”

“…Winnicott (1965) wrote about the various ways a mother's or father's mental illness might be reflected in the behaviours and emotional well-being of their children and noted that it was unlikely to find a child unaffected by a parent's illness, if even only as a result of the increased distance that often results between parents and children when the former is ill and in need of extra rest or special care. More recently, some possible mechanisms by which parental affect might influence children have begun to emerge (Ginsburg, Grover, & Ialongo, 2005;Kagan & Snidman, 1999;Kertz, Smith, Chapman, & Woodruff-Borden, 2008;Krohne & Hock, 1991;Lindhout et al, 2006;Moore, Whaley, & Sigman, 2004;Muris, van Brakel, Arntz, & Schouten, 2010;Rapee, 1997;Rutherford, 2003;Woodruff-Borden, Morrow, Bourland, & Cambron, 2002) although it is likely that there are still many areas of development potentially impacted by a parent's psychobiology that are as yet unexplored. One of these areas appears to be the effect of parental anxiety on the development of emotional intelligence (EI), broadly defined as those abilities related to the perceiving, assimilating, comprehending, and managing of emotions.…”