Poster #135 - Challenging Parenting Behavior and Rough-and-Tumble Play Quality as Mediators of Parent and Child Anxiety

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Fathers’ physical play is an important predictor of child development (StGeorge & Freeman, 2017), and multiple measures have been developed based on theories of fathers’ physical role in child development. Two such measures are the focus of this study on the transmission of anxiety. Fathers’ challenging parenting behavior (CPB), active physical and verbal behaviors that encourage children to push their limits, has been shown to predict less child anxiety in early childhood, whereas findings for mothers’ CPB are mixed (Majdandžić et al., 2014, 2018). Fathers’ rough-and-tumble play quality (RTPQ), a more dyadic measure assessing 16 aspects of physical play, including playfulness, harmony, and dominance, is negatively related to multiple aspects of children’s adjustment problems (StGeorge & Freeman, 2017). Mothers’ RTPQ, how parents’ own anxiety predicts their physical play, and RTPQ and CPB beyond early childhood have not yet been studied. The aim of this study was to explore whether fathers’ and mothers’ CPB and RTPQ mediate the relation between parent and child anxiety in late childhood.

Participants were 96 families who participated with their 8-12 years-old child in the cross-sectional study “Emotions of Children and Parents”. Forty-eight children participated with their mother, and 42 with their father in three separate rough-and-tumble games. Parents’ CPB (Majdandžić et al., 2016) and RTPQ (Fletcher et al., 2012) were separately coded from observations in these tasks. Parental anxiety was measured using the STAI (Spielberger et al., 1968). Child anxiety was assessed using combined father, mother, and child ratings of the FSSC-R (Ollendick, 1983).

Results showed that fathers and mothers did not differ in level of CPB: t(88) = -1.27, p = .208, or RTPQ: t(88) = -1.36, p = .178. Girls were rated higher than boys on anxiety: t(88) = 2.27, p = .026. Four mediation models, controlling for child sex, were tested using PROCESS (Hayes, 2013). Mothers’ CPB significantly mediated the relation between mothers’ and children’s anxiety (Figure 1), such that more anxious mothers showed less CPB, which in turn predicted more child anxiety. Although mothers’ anxiety predicted lower RTPQ, there was no mediation for this model because RTPQ was unrelated to child anxiety (Figure 2). For fathers, no significant relations between fathers’ own anxiety and CPB or RTPQ, and between CPB or RTPQ and child anxiety were found (Figures 1 and 2).

Thus, CPB, but not RTPQ, appears to play a role in the transmission of anxiety. Specifically, mothers’ CPB in late childhood mediates the relation between maternal and child anxiety. Mothers’ CPB in physical play may reflect such challenging behavior in other parent-child contexts, whereas the dyadic social qualities of RTPQ may affect child outcomes that are more sensitive to relationship-quality, such as depression. Fathers’ CPB does not seem to play a role in child anxiety at this age, in contrast to early childhood (Majdandžić et al., 2018); suggesting a shift in paternal role from early to late childhood. Both fathers’ and mothers’ physical play and its differential relation to specific child outcomes should be should be investigated in future research.

Authors

• Mirjana Majdandzic, University of Amsterdam
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer St George, Family Action Centre, University of Newcastle
  Non-Presenting Author

• Danielle Van der Giessen, University of Amsterdam
  Non-Presenting Author