Parenting and Childhood Anxiety Flashcards
What is childhood anxiety?
Most children experience a predictable pattern of fears throughout development that wave and wane - for some these become more persistent. Lots of things influence this which are varied in their presentation. 6% of 3-17 experience a diagnosable anxiety disorder. Runs in families, but only 30% heritable, therefore the environment (parenting) is an important influence.
How can we study whether anxiety runs in families?
2 types of designs look at this:
- Top down: Look at impact of anxious parents. Research has shown children with anxious parents are 7x more likely to experience anxiety themselves.
- Bottom up: from child to parent. Parents of children with anxiety disorders have an increased risk of having an anxiety disorder.
How might parenting contribute to childhood anxiety?
Learning experiences (vicarious learning, verbal information transfer), parenting styles/behaviours (over control/overprotection, negativity & lack of warmth, challenging parenting), attachment and family functioning (e.g. divorce and co-parenting).
What are Rachman (1977)’s indirect learning pathways?
Proposed there are three pathways by which children can learn to be fearful/anxious, one direct pathway, two indirect:
- Direct experience
- Verbal information
- Vicarious learning
What is vicarious learning?
Persistent fears can develop following observation of other’s fearful responses. 42% of adults attribute fears to vicarious reinforcement (however may be memory biases). Social referencing = children responses to fear influenced by observing another adults behaviour.
What research support vicarious learning?
Gerull & Rapee (2002): trained mothers to display either fearful expressions or happy expressions to a toy. Measured child’s fear response. Found children showed greater avoidance toward the toy their mother had shown negative responses to. Shown across different time periods. Gender differences - girls more affected by mothers responsive than boys.
What is a limitation or Gerull & Rapee’s study?
Key limitation was that they trained mothers to either respond positively or negatively - results could therefore be due to the child responding to their parent acting in an unfamiliar way. DeRosnay et al more naturalistic: mothers with and without social phobia. Stranger approach task. Found socially phobic mothers displayed more anxiety than control group. Were also less engaged and less encouraging of their child’s behaviour.
What is verbal information transfer?
2nd indirect pathway in Rachman’s model. Negative info increases children’s anxious beliefs & behaviour, positive info has the opposite effect. Percy et al (2015) to what extent is parents’ verbal communication to their child associated with childhood fears and anxiety? Results v mixed - samples with significant associations for catasrophising, use of negative emotion words (e.g. labelling child as shy), positive feedback, over controlling statements. BUT mixed findings, methodological issues, non-representative samples. Pass et al (2017) maternal info transfer about starting school. Verbal utterances were coded. Found children of mothers who expressed high negativity in descriptions were more likely to represent school in a negative way.
What are the three parenting styles associated with anxiety?
- Overcontrol/overprotection/lack of autonomy granting: excessive anxiety about what may happen to child, constant monitoring of child.
- Negativity/lack of warmth: lack of affection, involvement, acceptance & support & increased rejection and hostility.
- Challenging parenting: encouraging child in playful way to exhibit risky behaviour/behaviour that causes child to push his/her limits.
How can parental over control be seen?
Excessive caution, shielding, intrusiveness & reduced autonomy granting. Gives child message that world is a dangerous place. McLeod et al (2007): meta-analysis examining association between parental control and child anxiety = accounts for 6%.
How can parental negativity be seen?
May lead child to believe the environment is hostile & threatening, outcomes will be negative, have a sense of low self-worth. Evidence that it is associated with child anxiety is weak. McLeod (2007): small effect size of 0.20 for rejection.
How can challenging parenting be seen?
Possibly protective against development of child anxiety. Challenging parenting may lead child to be brave in unfamiliar situations, provide opportunities to stand up for self, improve confidence. Fathers challenging parenting interactions may be especially important for preventing anxiety. Lazarus et al (2016): fathers reported more challenging behaviours than mothers. Accounted for 4% variance in anxiety.
What are the differences between mothers and fathers?
Bogels & Phares - different evolutionary roles in child bearing.
Mothers specialised in internal care tasks e.g. feeding & soothing. Fathers specialise in preparing child for external world through risk taking, encouraging independence etc. Fathers influence may be more important than mothers for development of child anxiety.
Moller et al - parenting behaviours play small role in childhood anxiety, fathers may be more important.
