Abstract

Anxiety is the most common and earliest presenting of mental health problems and can have significant negative impacts on development across the lifespan, even at subclinical levels. Much research has explored the importance of the family system in children’s emotion socialization, including their anxiety trajectories. However, little research has explored parental influences in ways that account for the dyadic and transactional nature of the family system.

The overall aim of this research was to investigate dyadic patterns of parent and child perceptions and emotion socialization behaviours on children’s anxiety across development using Actor-Partner Interdependence Models. Data from Study 1 (N = 180) was drawn from the Concordia Longitudinal Research Project, an ongoing longitudinal, intergenerational study of children from disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Data from Study 2 (N = 208) was drawn from a three-wave community sample. Study 1 examined the dyadic influence of maternal and child perceptions of children’s anxiety and their role as a possible mechanism for the intergenerational transmission of anxiety. Overall, results suggested that maternal perceptions of children’s anxiety influenced children’s later self-perceptions of their own anxiety, but not vice versa. Maternal perceptions were also shown to mediate the link between maternal anxiety in early childhood and children’s self-reported anxiety in early adolescence, but only for mothers who were observed to be less sensitive and structuring in their interactions with their children. Study 2 examined the dyadic influence of maternal and paternal perceptions of children’s anxiety and responses to children’s expression of anxiety. Overall, results suggested that mothers and fathers influence each other’s negative socialization behaviours in different ways, with mothers’ behaviours influenced more indirectly by paternal perceptions and fathers’ behaviours influenced more directly by maternal behaviours.

The present studies build on previous work exploring parental perceptions of children’s temperamental anxiety in early childhood and maternal and paternal emotion socialization strategies in response to anxiety. These findings highlight the importance of exploring key relationships in a child’s environment when seeking to understand the importance of parenting on children’s anxiety trajectories. This line of research has important implications for early prevention and intervention within the family system.