Do You See What I See? Exploring Maternal and Child Perceptions of Children’s Anxiety Longitudinally

• In Event: Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

Parental influences on children’s anxiety trajectories have been widely documented in an attempt to explain the intergenerational transmission of anxiety. Previous research has implicated both directional (e.g., specific parenting behaviours) and bidirectional links (e.g., elicitation of specific parental behavior in response to children’s expressed anxiety) in the development of anxiety symptomology (see Moller et al., 2016). However, current models have largely failed to account for the interdependent nature of the parent-child relationship across time. Actor-partner interdependence models (APIMs) represent a promising statistical framework for exploring the dynamic relationship between parent and child while accounting for the nonindependence of dyadic data (Cook & Kenny, 2005). The goal of the current study was to examine the dyadic influence from childhood to early adolescence of mother and child perceptions of children’s anxiety. Maternal relational sensitivity, a possible mechanism through which perceptions may be expressed, was explored as a moderator of the relation between maternal reports and children’s self-reports of children’s anxiety.

Participants were 180 children (96 female) and their mothers recruited from a longstanding longitudinal study. They participated in three waves of data collection, in early childhood (“T1”; Mage = 3.54 years, SD = 1.56), middle childhood (“T2”; Mage = 10.46 years, SD = 1.00), and early adolescence (“T3”; Mage = 13.19 years, SD = 1.29). Mothers reported on children’s anxiety at all three timepoints using the Child Behavior Checklist, whereas children self-reported on their anxiety at T2 and T3 using the Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale. Mothers also reported on their own anxiety using the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised at T1 and T2. At T1 and T2, mothers and children were observed at home during a problem-solving session using age-appropriate puzzles. Their interactions were recorded and coded using the Emotional Availability Scales to provide measures of mothers’ sensitivity to children’s behavioral cues and structuring of their children’s problem solving.

Results are presented in Figure 1 and indicate mother-, but not child-driven partner effects of children’s anxiety perceptions over time. Maternal reports when children were 11 years old significantly predicted children’s reports of their own anxiety at age 13, but children’s self-reports at age 11 did not significantly predict mothers’ reports at age 13. Observed maternal sensitivity at age 11 was found to moderate this significant partner effect, such that mothers who perceived more anxiety in their children at age 11 and who were also observed to be less sensitive in interactions with their children at age 11 tended to have children who reported more anxiety at age 13. Mother’s ratings of their own anxiety symptoms were not found to directly predict children’s later anxiety but were found to indirectly influence later children’s self-reports of anxiety through mediation by maternal perceptions of children’s anxiety. Results from this APIM suggest that maternal awareness of children’s anxiety and their consequent behavioural interactions with their child may be one mechanism through which anxiety risk is transferred from parent to child over time.

Authors

• Alison Kirkpatrick, Concordia University
  Presenting Author

• Daniel Joseph Dickson
  Non-Presenting Author

• Dale M Stack, Concordia University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lisa A Serbin, Concordia University
  Non-Presenting Author