POSITIVE PARENTING BEHAVIOUR IN RELATION TO CHILD ANXIETY Can paternal challenging behaviour and maternal sensitive behaviour protect
(behaviourally inhibited) children against social anxiety?
Jolien Dekker University of Amsterdam Jolien Dekker Student nr: 6173152 Email: jolien.dekker@student.uva.nl Supervisor: E. Aktar Date: June, 2013
Abstract
The current study investigated whether challenging behaviour and sensitive behaviour from the parents could protect their children, especially highly inhibited children, from becoming socially anxious. The study consisted of 117 couples and their 2.5 years old firstborn child. The children visited the laboratory twice, once with their mother and once with their father. They participated in a social referencing task, where they were confronted with a stranger, to measure social anxiety. Parents also filled in questionnaires about their parenting behaviour and about the child’s
temperament. Regarding challenging behaviour, we found similar levels in mothers and fathers. Not fathers’ challenging behaviour as we expected, but maternal
challenging behaviour predicted less fear and avoidance in children. Especially highly behavioural inhibited children (vs. low and moderate) benefited from maternal
challenging behaviour, but only in the father visit, which partially supports the
differential susceptibility theory. In turn, we found that behavioural inhibited children became more avoidant when the father was more challenging. Regarding sensitive parenting, mothers were more sensitive in rearing their children than fathers, which was associated with decreased levels of avoidance in children, implying that toddlers are less avoidant to a stranger if mothers have a sensitive parenting style. Taken together, maternal challenging behaviour and maternal sensitive behaviour work protective for the anxiety development in earlier ages in children in the current study. It seems that mothers still have a predominant role at this young age. Further research is recommended with older children.
Positive parenting behaviour in relation to child anxiety
Anxiety disorders are highly prevalent both among children (Kashani & Orvaschel, 1990) and adults (Kessler, Chiu, Demler, & Walters, 2005). Social phobia is one of the most common among the anxiety disorders with a lifetime prevalence of 7-13% (Furmark, 2002). Social anxiety disorder is characterized by a persistent fear in social or performance situations in which the person is exposed to unfamiliar people. These situations are often accompanied by a lot of distress along with feelings of embarrassment or humiliation and often result in avoidance of the situation (DSM– IV–TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2000). In young children, anxiety
symptoms in social situations are crying, wariness and reaching for the parent
(Ollendick & Hirshfeld-Becker, 2002). Anxiety symptoms of adolescents take another form: they experience more panic-like symptoms, such as sweating and an increased heartbeat (Kasper, 1998). Additionally they may show nervous behaviour like nail biting, stuttering and avoiding eye contact (Ollendick & Hirshfeld-Becker, 2002). Without treatment the disorder often follows a chronic course (Solyom, Ledwidge, & Solyom, 1986). The disorder has a large negative impact on the child’s life: Socially anxious children are more likely to experience social and academic impairment, they often have fewer friends; they feel more alone and often get bullied. Furthermore, they are more likely to have school problems, sometimes even refuse to go to school and they have less communication with their parents than children without a social anxiety disorder (Van Roy, Kristensen, Groholt, & Clench-Aas, 2009). Long-term consequences of the disorder are depression, loneliness, a low representation of oneself, among other negative outcomes (Bögels et al., 2010; Rapee & Spence, 2004).
Social anxiety disorders aggregate in families. This means that children from parents diagnosed with social anxiety disorders are at higher risk for developing a social anxiety disorder themselves (Lieb et al., 2000). Multiple causes, such as genetic predisposition as well as environmental factors have their part in the development of a social anxiety disorder (Schneier, 2006). Twin studies and adoption studies suggest that there is a moderate genetic component that contributes to the transmission of anxiety. However it looks like this genetic influence is general and not specific, which means that emotional problems in general, like anxiety and depression are inherited and not specific anxiety disorders (Hudson & Rapee, 2000). Moreover, research suggests that this genetic influence is moderate, accounting for about one-third of the variance (Hettema, Neale & Kendler, 2001). Another factor with a biological basis
contributing to the development of an anxiety disorder is temperament, in particular behavioural inhibition (Kagan, Reznick, & Snidman, 1987). Children with high levels of behavioural inhibition tend to be fearful or withdrawn in novel or unfamiliar situations in comparison to children with low levels of behavioural inhibition who react to novelty in a more positive way (Calkins, Fox, & Marshall, 1996). Many studies have reported a link between behavioural inhibition and anxiety disorders. A study from Rosenbaum and colleagues (1993) reported higher rates of social phobia in parents of inhibited children in contrast to parents of non-inhibited children. Furthermore, research suggests that behavioural inhibition is a direct predictor for social anxiety (Hirshfeld-Becker et al., 2007; Stemberger, Turner, Beidel, & Calhoun, 1995). Highly inhibited children are at risk for developing an anxiety disorder, but are especially at risk for social anxiety disorders (Biederman et al., 2001; Clauss & Blackford, 2012). More than 40% of children who are behaviourally inhibited are found to develop a social anxiety disorder in later life (Clauss & Blackford, 2012).
Several theories, like the diathesis-stress model (Monroe & Simons, 1991; Zuckerman, 1999) and vulnerability-stress models (Ingram & Luxton, 2005; Nigg, 2006) suggest that infants with high levels of behavioural inhibition are more vulnerable for rearing influences than children who are not inhibited (Monroe & Simons, 1991; Zuckerman, 1999; Ingram & Luxton, 2005; Nigg, 2006; Belsky, 1997). The differential susceptibility theory is another important theory, which comes from Belsky (1997), this theory also suggests that children with an anxious temperament will be more susceptible for the effects of rearing environment. However, according to Belsky and Pluess (2009), differential susceptibility is “for better and worse” which means that behavioural inhibited children not only are more susceptible to adverse parenting, but also to positive parenting. Prevailing studies that investigated the differential susceptibility hypothesis suggest that especially the combination of a difficult temperament and inadequate parenting might lead to behavioural problems in children, because they exacerbate each other (Morrell & Murray, 2003; Belsky, Hsieh, and Crnic, 1998; Kochanska, 1993; Feldman, Greenbaum & Yirmiya, 1999). But there are also associations between parenting, behavioural inhibition and anxiety. Murray and colleagues (2008) studied the transmission of anxiety from mothers to children and found that infants (10-14 months old) from mothers with an anxiety disorder become more avoidant if they were behaviourally inhibited. In another study, de Rosnay and colleagues (2006) found that when mothers acted to be anxious in a
social ambiguous situation, children with high levels of behavioural inhibition were more avoidant than children with low levels of behavioural inhibition. This relation between maternal anxiety, behavioural inhibition and child avoidance is also confirmed by research from Aktar, Majdandžić, De Vente and Bögels (2013), who also included fathers, which showed the same outcome as the mothers. Following the “for better and worse” theory inhibited children also reap the most benefit from positive environmental influences. Van Aken, Junger, Verhoeven, van Aken and Deković (2007) showed that boys with a problematic temperament, who were about 1.5 years old, had the smallest increase in behaviour problems 6 months later if the mother had a very sensitive rearing style. This was also the other way around; if the mothers were highly insensitive and frequently used negative control they showed the biggest increase. These results were only found in the highly irritable boys and not in the children with an easy temperament. In sum, children with a heightened
susceptibility profit the most from the beneficial effects of rearing in comparison to other children, but they also would be most affected when there is a negative rearing. Parental anxiety is indicated to be a risk factor in the development of child anxiety in inhibited children, but there are very view studies about positive parenting factors, behaviourally inhibited children and child anxiety in combination. Nevertheless, the probability that specific parenting styles contribute to protecting children in becoming socially anxious remains open.
As noted earlier, genetic factors accounts for approximately one-third of the variance, so it is likely that environmental factors explain part of the remaining variance in the development of anxiety in children. The role of parenting in particular has been emphasized as an environmental influence (Eley, 2001). Evidence supports that parenting variables, such as overprotection, control, acceptance, rejection and support have their influence on child anxiety (Bögels & Phares, 2008; McLeod, Wood & Weisz, 2007).
Almost all research on the development of anxiety disorders so far, has
neglected the fathers. Nevertheless, previous studies suggested that fathers might have a different role in raising their children and thereby have a different influence on child anxiety (Bögels & Phares, 2008; Bögels & Perotti, 2011). The reason why there is a primary focus on mothers in the research of social anxiety might be that mothers spend more time with their child in the first years than fathers, so mothers might be more involved (Bögels, Stevens, & Majdandžić, 2011). A second reason is that it is
harder to include fathers in the research. Studies that did include fathers often encounter missing data on the fathers. Presumably this is because fathers are less available, they are too busy with work, they might have been divorced, or they just might be too anxious or avoidant to show up (Bögels & Phares, 2008). In recent years interest is growing in the role of the father in general and in addition there even is some evidence about the important role the father plays in the transmission of anxiety. Evolutionarily, the maternal and paternal roles in raising the offspring differ (Möller, Majdandžić, de Vente, & Bögels, 2013). Mothers are more specialized in caretaking, feeding and soothing, whereas fathers were more active in the broader environment where they were hunting to provide food, protecting their family against animals and other dangers and managing social interaction (Geary, 1998). Although to a lesser extent, these differences are still manifesting through society nowadays. Paternal involvement is increasing (Pleck, 1997) but it is still more focused on the outside world; by being more play-oriented, challenging, teasing, stimulating, more active and unpredictable fathers contribute in making their infants more social competent, more accepted by peers and popular (Parke et al., 2004). Fathers still spend a lot of time in the outside world. Although they are not at home, fathers are sending out the message that the external world is not dangerous, but is full of opportunities (Bögels et al., 2011). Children choose fathers above mothers to play with (Lamb, 1976; Lamb, 1977) and during this “rough and tumble” play with their fathers they may experience some internal arousal, similar to the arousal experienced due to discomfort or anxiety. They may learn to interpret this internal arousal more like fun than fear this way. It was suggested that this might be buffering against childhood social anxiety, because it increases children’s tolerance in social situations (Bögels & Perotti, 2011). By
exposing the children regularly to this arousal and by showing them it is not a dangerous, the fear is assumed to gradually extinguish. This process is the main reason why challenging behaviour might be a protective factor. Furthermore,
challenging games contribute to higher social confidence, because the child learns to take different roles in the play and learns to respond to different reactions, like teasing or being aggressive (Bögels et al., 2011). Fathers’ confident behaviour is assumed to have a stronger influence on infants with an anxious temperament, probably because they see social confidence as their father’s specialty. A suggestion from Bögels and colleagues is that these inhibited children may need to learn social confidence in particular, whereas low anxious children need to adopt wariness from their mother
(Bögels et al., 2011). In line with the differential susceptibility theory, Bögels and colleagues (2011) suggests that if the father responds in a socially confident way, the child with behavioural inhibition will benefit the most from the supportive fathering, which will protect the child from becoming socially anxious.
As described above, fathers and mothers have different roles in rearing a child. These evolutionary based differences suggests that fathers are more challenging, which is a positive parenting factor that might protect a child from becoming socially anxious. Mother’s evolutionary role is that they are more caring, so it might be that the warmth and sensitivity of the mother could also protect the child in growing socially anxious.
Sensitivity refers to the quality of how well mothers give their children the emotional support they need. In other words, they pay attention to the cues their children send out and give an adequate and accurate response to make the child feel safe and understood (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978). If mothers give the support the child needs consistently and in a predictable way, the child’s confidence in the mother will grow and he will feel protected (Ainsworth et al., 1978). These feelings of safety contribute to a positive view off oneself and others, which makes them more socially competent (Bohlin, Hagekull, & Rydell, 2000). Furthermore, children might experience more affect in interactions if they have a sensitive mother, which
contributes to a positive sense to other interactions with different people (MacDonald, 1992). Maternal sensitivity might prevent children from becoming socially anxious because children become more socially competent, but also because sensitive mothers provide positive guidance during challenging situations their children experience. This guidance will help regulate (negative) emotions (Mount, Crockenberg, Bárrig Jó & Wagar, 2010). More adaptive ways of regulating emotions and maternal support in threatening situations suggests a decreased risk of anxiety development (Mount et al., 2010). In contrast, children of less sensitive mothers are at higher risk for developing anxiety symptoms because of the insecure attachment they might have when the mother is inconstant and unpredictable in her responses (Gar, Hudson, & Rapee, 2005). Finally, research from Mount and colleagues (2010) has showed that maternal sensitivity lower the risk of anxiety disorders in highly inhibited children in contrast to children who are less inhibited.
Children predominantly use clues from parents to interpret the social world. This process already begins at the end of infancy: when children are about 10 months
old they start to acquire information from adults, mostly caregivers, to determine how to respond in a novel or ambiguous situation, this process is called social referencing (Feinman, 1982, Murray et al., 2008). When exposed to a novel or ambiguous object or person at this period, children are likely to look at the parent and search for messages the caretaker provides about the object or person. The child observes the reaction from the parent to this unfamiliar object or person, and adjusts his behaviour accordingly (Walden, 1991). Social referencing involves learning processes like modelling and observational learning. Social referencing might be an important process in the transmission of social anxiety from parent to child. Considering the uncertainty of a child during the situation, a negative or anxious response from the parent might cause the child to model this reaction and adopt this distinctive pattern via social referencing (De Rosnay, Cooper, Tsigaras & Murray, 2006). A few studies demonstrate that social anxiety can be transmitted via social referencing. Murray et al. (2008) examined the transmission of anxiety from mothers with (N =79) and without (N =77) a diagnostic anxiety status, to infants via social referencing. During this social referencing paradigm, children watched their mother talking to a strange person (at 10 and 14 months), who thereafter approached the child and conversed with him/her. They found that children, especially those who were behaviourally inhibited, showed more avoidance towards the stranger when the mother had a social anxiety disorder, these mothers also showed more anxiety during the task in comparison with the mothers without the disorder. De Rosnay and colleagues (2006) used a social referencing paradigm where mothers’ behaviour (N=24) during a social referencing situation was manipulated as socially anxious or as a neutral response. Infants showed significantly more fear and avoidance in the socially anxious condition than the neutral condition. Children with high levels of behavioural inhibition in this study had increased levels of avoidance when the mother showed anxious behaviour. Although social referencing occurs at the end of the first year in infants, in this study we used an adapted version of Murray’s social referencing task (2008) to study this process in 2.5 years old children. We assumed that parental rearing styles are more clear and stable at this age, since fathers are probably getting more challenging with their children in toddlerhood than when they were babies. Also mothers’
sensitive behaviour would be more visible with the increasingly risky situations in toddlerhood. Bögels and Perotti (2011) also mention in their study that parents’ influence increases, as children grow older. It is plausible that these rearing
behaviours have an effect on the anxiety levels the children may show in the social referencing task conducted in this research. Moreover, fear and avoidance may be better measurable at 2.5 years than at 12 months because toddlers are generally more mobile, which contributes to more obvious avoidance, than one-year-olds who were sitting in a high chair (in Murray’s SR task) and couldn’t move much. Also sudden freezing of the body, which is an expression of fear, is more visible when they are more mobile. Toddlers are also capable of verbal expressions, like “daddy, I’m
afraid”, compared to infants, which makes fear more clearly observable. The negative outcome for fear in previous social referencing studies may be related to the
definitional and behavioural overlap between BI and fear (Rapee, Schniering & Hudson, 2009). It may be that these concepts are too much alike at the early age of 12 months.
This study aimed to explore positive rearing styles and their connection to the development of child anxiety. Specifically, we aimed to explore if challenging behaviour from the father and sensitive behaviour from the mother could protect the (inhibited) child from this disorder. In order to measure child anxiety, and the knowledge on how child anxiety is transferred in young children, we used a social referencing task adapted from Murray’s social referencing task (2008). Parental behaviour was measured using questionnaires about their rearing behaviour. With regard to the different roles parents play in rearing a child, (with mothers being more caring and fathers more play-oriented), we expected that fathers would be more challenging than mothers, and that mothers would be more sensitive than fathers. On the basis of a suggestion from Bögels and colleagues (2011), indicating that
challenging games with high arousal will protect children from developing social anxiety, we predicted that challenging behaviour from the father has a positive effect on child anxiety. Thus, we hypothesized that child anxiety would be lower if the father is challenging than if the father is less challenging. We also expected that maternal sensitivity would prevent the child from developing anxiety symptoms or disorders. This hypothesis is consistent with Mount and colleagues’ view (2010) that the risk of developing child anxiety can be decreased because sensitive behaviour of mothers contribute to effective emotion regulation, which make the child less fearful in frightening situations. So our second hypothesis was that child anxiety would be lower when mothers are more sensitive. With behavioural inhibition as a precursor for the development of anxiety, some children would be more vulnerable for the disorder.
In line with the differential susceptibility theory from Belsky (1997), which
empathized that predisposed children also profit the most from beneficial rearing, we came to the next hypothesis; challenging behaviour from the father and sensitive behaviour from the mother will work as a buffer for the development of social anxiety in inhibited children. We predicted that children who were highly inhibited would be less fearful and avoidant at 2.5 years if the father has high levels of challenging behaviour in comparison to low inhibited children. Finally, we expected that children who are highly inhibited would be less fearful and avoidant at 2.5 years if the mother is highly sensitive in comparison to easy temperament children.
Method Participants
Participants were 117 couples (116 mothers and 114 fathers) and their firstborn child, who participated in the longitudinal study “the social development from baby to pre-schooler”. This on-going study, which investigates the antecedents of social anxiety in young children, consists of repeated measurements among the same respondents. A pre-natal measurement and the measurements at 4 months, 1 year and 2.5 years are completed, whilst the 4.5 years measurement is still taking place and the final measurement at 7 years will be completed in about 3 years time. This current study only used the data from the 2.5 years measurement. The recruitment of the participants took place via obstetrician offices in and around Amsterdam, flyers were spread in different baby stores and at pregnancy courses, furthermore advertisements were placed on the internet and in magazines. These advertisements were aimed at couples that were expecting their fist child. Inclusion criteria for participation of the study were that the parents speak fluently Dutch or English. Children were required to have a minimal birth weight of 2500 grams with no neurological impairments and had to have an Apgar score of at least 8. To reward the families for their participation, a 20 Euro gift card and a DVD from the measurement was given after each visit. 117 Infants (64 girls and 53 boys) came to the baby laboratory of the University of Amsterdam separately with their mothers and fathers. At the 2.5 years measurement the mean age from the children was 2.52 years (SD = 0.11). The mothers’ mean age was 34.07 years (SD = 4.15) and the fathers’ mean age was 34.02 years (SD = 4.18). Both parents had a relatively high educational level; mothers’ had a mean score of 7.07 (SD = 1.12) and fathers’ 6.63 (SD = 1.56) at a rating scale from 1 (primary
education) to 8 (university). Furthermore, parents professional level was assessed, mothers’ average score was 8.69 (SD =2.14) and fathers had a mean score of 8.23 (SD = 2.66) on a 11-point rating scale ranging from manual labour for which no education is required (1) to labour for which a university degree is required (11). Almost all parents were from Dutch origin (mothers: 90.6%, fathers: 94.9%).
Tabel 1
Socio-demographic characteristics of the parents and children
a
Rating scale: 1 (primary education) to 8 (university).
b
Rating scale: 1 (manual labour for which no education is required) to 11 (labour for which a university degree is required).
Procedure
The measurements took place at the “baby lab” at the research department of child development at the University of Amsterdam. Both the parents visited the lab separately with their child. The procedure during the father and mother measurements was quite similar, only a few changes were made to prevent potential carryover effects. The order of the visits was taken into account in the analyses and was used as a control variable. For the present study we used the social referencing task to
measure child anxiety. To measure behavioural inhibition parents filled in a questionnaire about their child’s temperament. Parental challenging behaviour and sensitive behaviour was also assessed with questionnaires. These questionnaires were filled in at home before they went to the “baby lab”. The sessions took place in a room behind a one-way-window and were recorded by three cameras.
Materials
Child anxiety
Mothers Fathers Girls Boys N Age M (SD) 116 34.07 (4.15) 114 34.02 (4.18) 64 2.53 (.14) 53 2.52 (.06) Dutch Origin Educational levela M (SD) 90.6% 7.07 (1.12) 94.9% 6.63 (1.56) Professional levelb M (SD) 8.69 (2.14) 8.23 (2.66)
Child anxiety to strangers was observed during an adapted version of the social referencing task of Murray (2008). A female stranger entered the room and started to have a conversation for two minutes with the parent, about activities the child likes to do and toys the child likes to play with. During the conversation the stranger was focused at the parent and paid no attention to the child who was sitting in a chair at a table next to the parent. When the conversation was finished the stranger requested the parent if he/she would ask the child to sit with the stranger and read a book with her. When the child sat at the chair next to the stranger, she read four short stories (2 minutes in total) from a book with windows, which the child could open when he/she wanted to. If the child wouldn’t dare to go to the stranger, the parent and stranger tried to convince the child by inviting him/her again, if that didn’t work, the stranger came to the table at which the child sat.
The female stranger was instructed to stay neutral but friendly during the tasks. Different strangers participated in the measurement.
The child’s fear and avoidance were measured during SR task. A protocol based on the coding protocol developed by Murray et al. (2008) was used to measure these infant variables. The variables ‘infant fear’ and ‘infant avoidance’ were rated at a 5-point scale.
- Infant fear: This variable is rated from 1(no fearfulness) to 5 (very intense
fearfulness). A number of behaviours can indicate fearfulness and are divided in facial (wide-open eyes, staring, eyebrows raised and straight back mouth corners), bodily (tight muscle tension and a sudden decrease in motor activity) and vocal fears (crying or screaming, but also things the infant says like “I don’t want to” or “go away”) in a single rating. If all three categories occur in one time interval a minimal score of 4 (intense fear) was given.
- Infant avoidance: This variable was also rated on a 5-point scale: from no stranger avoidance (1) to very intense stranger avoidance (5). The behaviour predispositions are based on the same avoidance scales Ainsworth and colleagues (1978) used. Avoidance can be defined as an increasing distance between the child and the stranger here, by stepping away, turning away or leaning away, turning the back to the stranger or turning your head away from the stranger. Hiding behind the parent or an object, for example the cough, is also a manifestation of avoidance. But also more subtle manifestations such as pulling your arm back, avoiding eye contact or simply not coming when it is asked are forms of avoidance.
For coding, the videos recorded during the tasks were divided into epochs, which are small time intervals. Each epoch was defined by either an action from the stranger or after the elapse of one minute. At the end, the mean score across all epochs of each variable was calculated. Thus, per task, one mean score is obtained for fearfulness and one mean score for avoidance. These scores were used for analysing the data.
Two student coders coded all 117 children after an intensive training. Each coder coded one visit per family except for 20% of the data that were double coded by the students to measure the inter-reliability. The inter-reliability (intraclass correlations ICC) was .90 for fear and .95 for avoidance.
Behavioural inhibition
Behavioural inhibition (BI) was assessed using a short form questionnaire from the EBCQ: Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire. This questionnaire developed by Putnam, Gartstein and Rothbart (2006) measures aspects of toddler’s temperament. The short form consists of 107 items that are subdivided into eighteen different
subscales such as activity level, fear, sadness, motor-activation and more. Parents rated the frequency of temperament aspects of their child on a 7-point Likert-scale ranging from never (1) to always (7). For this research we have operationalized behavioural inhibition by using two subscales: fear and shyness. The subscale fear consists of 8 items and is defined as “Negative affect related to anticipated pain, distress, sudden events and/or potentially threatening situations” (Putnam et al., 2006). An example from this scale is “While in a public place, how often did your child show fear when the caregiver stepped out of sight?” The subscale shyness consists of 5 items and is described as following: “Slow or inhibited approach and/or discomfort in social situations involving novelty or uncertainty” (Putnam et al., 2006). An item from de shyness scale is “in situations where s/he is meeting new people, how often did your child turn away?” The internal consistency of this combined scale was acceptable in the current sample (mothers: α= .79, fathers: α= .76). An averaged BI score was formed from the maternal and paternal score (r = .50). Subsequently we categorized the BI scores into three levels: low, moderate and high BI children.
Parenting behaviour
To measure parenting behaviour (i.e. challenging behaviour and sensitive behaviour) parents filled in a self-report questionnaire about different parenting dimensions (Comprehensive Parenting Behaviour Questionnaire: Majdandžić, de Vente & Bögels, 2008). The questionnaire consists of 151 items, divided into six
dimensions. For the purpose of this study the dimensions ‘challenging parenting behaviour’ and ‘warmth’ (to measure sensitive behaviour) were used. The parents rated their behaviour from 1; not applicable, to 5; completely applicable. The challenging behaviour scale consists of items about for example stimulating your child to take risks, teasing your child, the occurrence of rough and tumble play, being an example for your child in showing challenging behaviour and more. An example from the challenging behaviour dimension is “I sometimes throw my child in the air and catch him/her”. This challenging behaviour dimension has a total of 40 items and has a good internal consistency (mothers: α= .89, fathers: α= .85). The parenting dimension warmth consists of 24 items and was also internal consistent (mothers: α= .85, fathers: α= .86). In this dimension, components like attention, affection,
acceptance and responsiveness are included. An example from this dimension is “I comfort my child and I am understanding when he/she is upset”.
Statistical analyses
All statistical analyses were performed using the program Statistical Product and Service Solutions (IBM SPSS Statistics Version 20 for Mac).
To examine if mothers and fathers differ in the degree of rearing behaviour an independent samples T-test was conducted, with gender of the parent as the independent variable and parenting behaviour as the dependent variable.
For the remaining hypotheses, a repeated measures ANCOVA was performed to examine the relationship between parenting behaviour and child fear and avoidance. The same model was used to look at the interaction between parenting behaviour, behavioural inhibition and child fear and avoidance. We used this repeated measures method because the children visited the research centre twice, once with their mother and once with their father, where they underwent the same tasks twice. Separate models were used with child fear and child avoidance as outcome variables. Challenging behaviour and warmth were used as covariates to analyse if parental behaviour has an influence on child fear and avoidance, as well as to analyse if this influence is different for mothers and fathers.
In order to examine how the interaction of parental challenging behaviour and behavioural inhibition predict the degree of child fear and avoidance, behavioural inhibition was added as a between subjects factor into the main effects model. Maternal and paternal challenging behaviour and child behavioural inhibition were
covariates, where child fear and child avoidance were outcome variables.
Additionally, the same analysis was done with maternal and paternal warmth and child behavioural inhibition as covariates to determine if more behaviourally inhibited children profit more (i.e. show less levels of fear and avoidance) from the sensitive parenting style from their parents. Significant associations between covariates and dependent measures were inspected with plots and correlations.
Results Maternal and paternal parenting behaviour
To determine if mothers and fathers differ in the degree of parenting styles, like we expected on evolutionary basis, we conducted an independent samples T-test (see Table 2). First we compared challenging behaviour. No significant difference was found between mothers’ (M = 3.13, SD = .48) and fathers’ (M = 3.25, SD = .41; t (209) = -1.81, p = .071, two-tailed) degree of challenging behaviour. For warmth there was a significant difference between mothers (M = 4.47, SD = .31) and fathers (M = 4.18, SD = .38; t (205) = 5.82, p = .000, two-tailed). Mothers reported to have a more sensitive rearing style than fathers have.
Table 2
Descriptive T-test parenting behaviour
Mothers Fathers
Mean SD Mean SD t p (two-tailed)
Challenging behaviour 3.13 .48 3.25 .41 -1.81 .071 Sensitive behaviour 4.47 .31 4.18 .38 5.82 .000* * p < .05
Parental challenging behaviour, BI, and child fear and avoidance
For our next hypotheses we conducted a repeated measures ANCOVA to find out if there is a link between the degree of parenting behaviour and the degree of child fear and child avoidance. In the first step, child fear was the dependent variable and
maternal, paternal challenging behaviour and behavioural inhibition were covariates. We tested the associations of child fear with maternal and paternal challenging behaviour and behavioural inhibition (see Table 3). Children showed similar levels of fear during the mother and father visits. There was a significant negative association between maternal challenging behaviour and child fear in the main effects model, F (1, 85) = 8.15, p < .005: When mothers were more challenging, their children showed less fear in both the mother and father visits, indicating that fear in children decreases if mothers show high levels of challenging behaviour. This association was not found for paternal challenging behaviour, F (1, 85) = 1.94, p = .168. In a second main effects model, we explored how challenging behaviour is connected to children’s avoidance. Concerning the associations of maternal and paternal challenging behaviour with children’s avoidance, we found that maternal challenging behaviour significantly predicted child avoidance, F (1, 85) = 10.32, p < .002. The association was negative: decreased avoidance was observed in children when mothers were more challenging. This negative association held both in the mother and father visits. There was no significant association between paternal challenging behaviour and child avoidance, F (1, 85) = 3.33, p = .072. In line with the differential susceptibility theory, in the third step, we included the interaction of behavioural inhibition with challenging behaviour to the main effect model to inspect whether the association between challenging behaviour and child’s fear and avoidance differ as a function of behavioural inhibition. Although the interaction between behavioural inhibition and maternal challenging behaviour was not significant, a three way interaction between parent visit, BI and maternal challenging behaviour predicted child fear, indicating that the association between challenging behaviour and fear significantly differed as a function of BI in the mother visits versus the father visits, F (1, 85) = 4.57, p < .013 (see Table 3). To further inspect this three-way interaction, we conducted separate ANCOVAS for mothers’ and father’s visits. In the father visit a significant interaction effect between behavioural inhibition and maternal challenging behaviour, F (1, 98) = 4.36, p < .039 revealed that for highly inhibited children, there was a negative
association between BI and challenging behaviour; that is, highly inhibited (vs. moderate and low), showed less fear when mothers were more challenging. Interestingly, the effect of maternal challenging behaviour was only visible in the father’s visit and not in the mother’s visit. In other words, highly behavioural inhibited children seemed to benefit the most from maternal challenging behaviour
when they are with their fathers. In turn, levels of behavioural inhibition didn’t predict fear as a function of paternal challenging behaviours. However, the repeated measures ANCOVA did show a significant three-way interaction between parent visit, paternal challenging behaviour, behavioural inhibition and child avoidance, F (1, 85) = 4.50, p < .014 (see Table 3). Separate ANCOVAS for the mother and father visits revealed that the interaction between the levels of behavioural inhibition and paternal
challenging behaviour significantly predicted avoidance in children only in the father visit, F (1, 95) = 5.14, p < .026, such that children with low levels of behavioural inhibition have reduced levels of avoidance when fathers were more challenging. The association was positive for moderate and high behavioural inhibited, meaning that children with an anxious temperament were more avoidant when fathers are more challenging.
Table 3
Effects for Infant Fear and Avoidance (dependent variables), Challenging behaviour and Behavioural Inhibition
* p < .05 Source
Child fear Child
Avoidance Sum of squares Mean Square F (df 1,85) p Partial Eta Squared Sum of squares Mean Square F (df 1,85) p Partial Eta Squared Parent .05 .05 .50 .484 .01 .26 .26 .94 .335 .01 Parent*BI .08 .04 .39 .676 .01 .28 .12 .51 .605 .01 Parent*Challenging behaviour mother .01 .01 .09 .763 .00 .17 .17 .62 .433 .01 Parent*Challenging behaviour father .02 .02 .18 .673 .00 .05 .05 .19 .665 .00 Parent*BI*Challenging behaviour mother .96 .48 4.57 .013* .10 1.53 .76 2.77 .069 .06 Parent*BI*Challenging behaviour father .42 .21 1.98 .144 .05 2.48 1.24 4.50 .014* .10 BI .50 .25 .72 .489 .02 1.23 .61 .96 .388 .02
Challenging behaviour mother 2.80 2.8 8.15 .005* .09 6.62 6.62 10.32 .002* .11 Challenging behaviour father .66 .66 1.94 .168 .02 2.13 2.13 3.33 .072 .04 BI*Challenging behaviour mother 1.42 .71 2.07 .133 .05 2.05 1.03 1.60 .207 .04 BI*Challenging behaviour father .25 .13 .37 .694 .01 1.08 .54 .84 .435 .02
Parental sensitive behaviour, BI and child fear and avoidance
To examine the relation between sensitive parenting behaviour and child fear and avoidance, we first fitted a model with fear as an outcome variable and maternal, paternal warmth and behavioural inhibition as covariates (see Table 4). The level of fear didn’t significantly differ between mother and father visits. First, we inspected if maternal and paternal sensitive behaviour are associated with the levels of fear in children. The main effects model showed no significances, implying that sensitive behaviour from parents is not related with the fear outcome of the children. In the second main effects model, avoidance was entered as outcome variable, to determine if warmth and child avoidance are connected with each other (see Table 4). There was a significant negative association for mothers, F (1, 82) = 8.81, p < .004, but not for fathers, F (1, 82) = .12, p = .735. Mothers’ higher levels of sensitive behaviour were associated with lower levels of avoidance by the child; an effect that was visible both in mothers’ and fathers’ visits. In order to examine how sensitive behaviour from parents, predicts fear and avoidance (Table 4) as a function of behavioural inhibition, the interaction between behavioural inhibition and parental warmth was measured as a predictor of child fear and avoidance in separate models. The models showed that the association between sensitive behaviour from parents and the anxiety outcome in children does not significantly differ as a function of behavioural inhibition.
Table 4
Effects for Infant Fear and Avoidance (dependent variables), Sensitive behaviour and Behavioural Inhibition
* p < .05 Source
Child fear Child
Avoidance Sum of squares Mean Square F (df 1,82) p Partial Eta Squared Sum of squares Mean Square F (df 1,82) p Partial Eta Squared Parent .17 .17 1.64 .203 .02 .33 .33 1.12 .296 .01 Parent*BI .53 .27 2.63 .078 .06 .93 .47 1.56 .217 .04 Parent*Sensitive behaviour mother .28 .28 2.77 .100 .03 .35 .35 1.18 .281 .01 Parent*Sensitive behaviour father .01 .01 .06 .800 .00 .01 .01 .04 .835 .00 Parent*BI*Sensitive behaviour mother .24 .12 1.19 .310 .03 .53 .27 .88 .417 .02 Parent*BI*Sensitive behaviour father .17 .08 .81 .448 .02 .58 .29 .97 .384 .02 BI .37 .17 .53 .589 .01 .77 .39 .59 .556 .01
Sensitive behaviour mother .81 .81 2.33 .131 .03 5.75 5.75 8.81 .004* .10 Sensitive behaviour father .43 .43 1.22 .272 .02 .08 .08 .12 .735 .00 BI*Sensitive behaviour
mother
.08 .04 .12 .890 .00 .06 .03 .05 .953 .00
Discussion
The main question in the present research was if maternal sensitive behaviour and paternal challenging behaviour will protect children, especially behavioural inhibited children, from becoming socially anxious. In order to give an answer to this question we first examined whether mothers and fathers differ in the amount of parenting behaviour they apply in the upbringing of their children. We examined if there is a difference in the degree of sensitive and challenging behaviour in parents, based on the different roles fathers and mothers have in child development (Bögels & Perotti, 2011; Paquette, 2004). With the expectation that mothers were more sensitive and fathers more challenging, we explored if these positive rearing styles have a positive effect on the fear and avoidance development of toddlers. Thus, if fathers have high levels of challenging behaviour, we expected that the levels of anxiety and avoidance of the children would be low. We also investigated this relation for the mothers and for sensitive parenting. Finally, based on the differential susceptibility theory (Belsky, 1997) we tested whether challenging and sensitive parenting
behaviour predicted child’s fear and avoidance as a function of behavioural inhibition. First, on the basis of prior findings about parenting roles, which showed that mothers and fathers differ in raising their children (Bögels & Perotti, 2011; Paquette, 2004), we expected that mothers would be more sensitive to their children, and fathers would be more challenging to their children in raising them.
Consistent with the perspective that sensitivity seems to be more pronounced in mothers than in fathers (Möller et al., 2013), the findings in the present study demonstrated that mothers indeed are more sensitive in raising their children than fathers. However, concerning challenging behaviour, the results are indicating similar levels of challenging behaviour for both fathers and mothers, which did not support our hypothesis that fathers are more challenging. There may be several reasons behind this finding. First, a possible explanation according to Zajonc (2001) might be that parents of first-born children are more insecure and adjust their approach more to each other compared to their approach to the second born child, when they will differentiate more in parenting styles. Second, parenting behaviour was measured with questionnaires in the present study, whereas parenting behaviour measured with observations in a study from Majdandžić, Möller, Bögels and Van den Boom (2011) resulted in greater levels of challenging behaviour in fathers than mothers.
Assuming we had found a difference in the amount of challenging behaviour, we expected that fathers’ challenging behaviour would have had a negative association with the fear and avoidance outcome of the children (i.e. when they are more challenging, the fear and avoidance in children would decrease in the social referencing task). The results revealed that not fathers’ but mothers’ challenging behaviour was negatively associated with fear. The levels of maternal challenging behaviour predicted lower levels of fear in children. This result was also significant for avoidance. Less avoidance was observed during mother and father visits when mothers have higher levels of challenging behaviour. Taken together, maternal challenging behaviour contributes to decreased levels of fear and avoidance in children. A potential reason for the effect of maternal challenging behaviour may be that mothers probably have more impact on their children if they are still very young of age. Although fathers’ presence related to their family has improved over the years (Pleck, 1997), mothers are still more involved and more around at this age, indicating that the children are more exposed to maternal behaviour (Lamb, 2000). Majdandžić, Möller, Bögels and Van den Boom (2011) also examined whether parental
challenging behaviour predict less social anxiety in children. They tested 94 families with their two children. Consistent with the results in our study fathers’ challenging behaviour was unrelated to the levels of fear in the youngest (2.5 years old) children. However, there was a negative association between paternal challenging behaviour and fear in the oldest (4.5 years old) children, implying that these children profit from their challenging father and showed lower levels of fear. The different outcomes for the youngest and oldest children were explained as a result of biological factors that are relatively of greater influence for the younger children, whereas environmental factors, like parenting, are stronger for older children. It was suggested that parenting behaviour had more time in older children to affect the development of social anxiety (Majdandžić, et al., 2011).
For the next hypothesis, we examined how sensitive behaviour has an effect on the degree of fear and avoidance of children. Based on prior research (Mount et al., 2010) indicating that higher levels of maternal sensitivity lower the risk of anxiety disorders in children, we expected a negative association between sensitive parenting and child’s fear and avoidance. In the current study, no association was found
between mothers’ sensitive behaviour and child’s fear. Although the results didn’t support the hypothesis for fear, there was a relation between maternal sensitive
behaviour and child’s avoidance. Mothers’ sensitive behaviour was associated with lower levels of avoidance in children, both in mother and father visits. A possible interpretation for the results that maternal sensitivity contributes to decreased levels of avoidance and not for fear might be that the social referencing task wasn’t enough fear-provoking. The situation might not have been threatening enough to cause high levels of fear in children. However, avoidance to a stranger is a marker of social anxiety, thus maternal sensitivity seems to contribute to less social anxiety in children. In addition, previous social referencing studies (De Rosnay et al., 2006; Murray et al., 2008; Aktar et al., 2013) also showed findings for avoidance in relation to parenting. No associations were found between fathers’ sensitive behaviour and levels of fear and avoidance in children, implying that paternal sensitive behaviour does not protect children from the development of anxiety.
Finally, in line with the differential susceptibility theory from Belsky (1997), we investigated whether toddlers with higher levels of behavioural inhibition are more susceptible to the rearing behaviour of their parents compared to children that have a normal temperament. Here we have found some interesting results. The differential susceptibility theory was partially confirmed for maternal challenging behaviour. High behavioural inhibited children benefited from their mothers’ challenging behaviour, resulting in lower levels of fear, but only in the father visits. It is not clear why this finding only showed up in the fathers’ measurement. Previous research from Bögels, Stevens and Majdandžić (2011) suggested that socially anxious children give more weight to their fathers’ behaviour, especially to social confidence, because evolutionary based, fathers are more specialized in social competition and risk-taking behaviour. However, in the current study it looks like mothers have more influence, but it might be that children who have an anxious temperament only feel safe enough to show what they really feel when the father is with them at the moment, because fathers boosts more social confidence at ambiguous moments than mothers. On the contrary, when fathers are challenging, children with an anxious temperament (high behavioural inhibited children) increase in avoiding the stranger in the social
referencing task. This result is in contradiction with Belsky’s theory (1997), but actually not very surprising. As a part of challenging behaviour, rough and tumble play, which is more distinctive in fathers (Paquette, 2004), may first lead to more fear and excitement in children, and thus probably also to more avoidance in risky
avoidance) may gradually extinguish. Presumably this effect hasn’t completely evolved yet when the children are at 2.5 years of age, but will rather show on the long term, when they are in elementary school or even higher of age. More research is needed to examine these long-term effects of paternal challenging behaviour. It might also be interesting to examine how challenging behaviour differs between mothers and fathers in a more qualitative way. Comparable to the current study, Aktar et al. (2013) found that parental encouragement in the social referencing situation is associated with higher levels of avoidance in children. A plausible reason for this could be that mothers are more sensitively challenging, whereas fathers are more pushing when they are challenging their children. This might explain why high behaviourally inhibited children did benefit from mothers’ challenging behaviour, but not from fathers’ challenging behaviour.
Looking at our results we can conclude that mothers and fathers show similar levels in the extent of challenging behaviour they provide. Furthermore, mothers are more sensitive in rearing their children than fathers. Inconsistent with what we expected, maternal challenging behaviour instead of paternal challenging behaviour was associated with lower levels of fear and avoidance. This implies that a
challenging rearing style (from mothers) might work protective for the anxiety development in earlier ages in children. Especially children with high levels of behavioural inhibition seem to be the more susceptible for maternal challenging behaviour, which confirms the differential susceptibility theory. Yet, these results are only confirmed for mothers. It looks like mothers still have greater influence in children of this age when it comes to parenting. It might be interesting to investigate this relationship when children are older, assuming that fathers will be more
challenging and in addition have a larger impact on children when they are older. Furthermore, opposed to what we expected, paternal challenging behaviour is associated with higher levels of avoidance in moderate and high behaviourally
inhibited children, which may be a short-term effect and changes when children grow older. Regarding sensitive parenting, maternal sensitive behaviour was associated with decreased levels of avoidance in children, implying that toddlers are less avoidant if mothers have a sensitive parenting style.
In the present study there are several limitations that need to be acknowledged. The first limitation is that our participants are relatively highly educated and also work at relatively high professional levels. These levels are probably not
representative for the whole Dutch population. Moreover, the offspring of families with lower SES (socioeconomic status) levels also seem to be more at risk in the development of anxiety disorders (Beidel & Turner, 1997). A second limitation is that parenting behaviour and behavioural inhibition are both measured with questionnaires in this study. Thus, our results say something about perceived parenting styles and not about actual parenting styles. The same can be said about behavioural inhibition. The reason for using questionnaires was that in this way a wide range of behaviours and different situations could be assessed, which presumably results in more valuable information than observations. A combination of measurement instruments may help to provide a more precise estimate of parenting constructs and behavioural inhibition (McLeod, Wood & Weisz, 2007). Third, the findings of the study should be
interpreted with caution because the relations between variables could be reciprocal. The direction between variables is not clear. For example, in this study we concluded that there was a relation between maternal challenging behaviour and low levels of fear. We interpreted these results as a presumption that when mothers are challenging in rearing their child, this could work protective for developing anxiety symptoms or disorders. But it could be the other way around; perhaps mothers are more
challenging if their children are less anxious. Longitudinal studies are recommended to give a more clear view in the causality between parenting and their influence on child anxiety.
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