Author : Evangelia Lambidoni
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 206 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (611 download)
Book Synopsis Parenting and Family Interaction Patterns Associated with Childhood Anxiety by : Evangelia Lambidoni
Download or read book Parenting and Family Interaction Patterns Associated with Childhood Anxiety written by Evangelia Lambidoni and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: This study investigated the interconnection of parenting style, family cohesion, and parental responses to children's negative emotions in families with and without a clinically anxious child. Hypotheses anticipated that adaptive family interaction patterns, such as democratic parenting, cohesiveness, and supportive parental reactions to the child's distress, would be positively associated with each other, and that both would relate negatively to children's anxiety symptoms. Study participants were fifty families residing in the greater Boston, 26 of which had a clinically anxious offspring. Samples were comparable on most demographic characteristics, although in the non-clinical group, children's mean age was lower and parents were more ethnically diverse. Parents reported on family interaction variables (Family Functioning Scale and Coping with Children's Negative Emotions Scale) and on children's anxiety symptoms (Child Behavior Checklist). Results showed limited overlap between parenting style and family interaction patterns. The only such interconnection that emerged was between authoritarian parenting style and the family interaction variables of enmeshment and conflict. In contrast to predictions, authoritarian parenting was positively associated with supportive parental responses to children's distress. As anticipated in both samples, family cohesion was positively related to family expressiveness. The expected positive associations of family cohesion and expressiveness with supportive parental responses to the child's negative affect were not confirmed in either sample. The assumed negative relationships of family expressiveness and cohesion with non-supportive parental reactions were seen in the non-clinical group, suggesting that these patterns of parental behavior toward children may be a protective factor against children's anxiety. Additionally, emotion-focused parental responses to the child's negative affect were greater in the clinical sample, suggesting that this type of parental response, although supportive, may not be adaptive by itself. As expected, enmeshment and punitive parental responses to the child's negative affect predicted greater externalizing and internalizing (combined) symptoms in the clinical sample, while the single significant predictor of children's anxiety symptoms in the non-clinical group was parents' birthplace, with parents born in the U.S.A. rating their child higher on these symptoms. Limitations of the study and implications for theory and practice are discussed.