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 Observational data revealed that anxious parents were significantly less productively engaged and more withdrawn and disengaged during the interactions but did not differ from nonanxious parents in terms of overall levels of control.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.