Influence of maternal negative emotion reactivity and cognitive reappraisal on child anxiety disorder.

BACKGROUND: Anxiety disorders are among the most common psychopathologies in childhood. Two underlying contributors to child anxiety disorders (ADs) are negative emotional hyper-reactivity and deficits in reappraisal, a cognitive strategy of emotion regulation. Given that emotion regulation develops in the context of parent-child interaction, the aim of this study was to fill a research gap regarding the association between maternal negative emotional reactivity (NER) and reappraisal and child anxiety by examining (a) whether mothers of children with ADs display abnormalities in emotional reactivity and reappraisal compared to mothers of children without ADs; (b) whether maternal NER and reappraisal are associated with child anxiety; and (c) whether maternal reactivity and reappraisal significantly explain the variance in the level of child anxiety beyond the level of maternal anxiety. METHOD: Forty-nine mothers and their AD children (aged 10-17) were assessed at admission to an anxiety disorder clinic and were compared to a control group of 42 mothers and their non-anxious (NA) children. Child and maternal anxiety were assessed, as well as maternal NER and reappraisal. RESULTS: Mothers of AD children showed a higher NER as well as reappraisal deficits compared to the control group. Self-rated child anxiety was associated with maternal deficits in reappraisal. The variance in child anxiety was significantly explained by the level of maternal anxiety as well as maternal reappraisal deficits. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that maternal NER and reappraisal play an important role in child anxiety and should be considered in prevention and intervention of childhood ADs.

Patterns of emotion regulation and emotion-related behaviors among parents of children with and without ADHD.

Parent emotion regulation is a crucial factor in child adjustment. This study examined the patterns and correlation of emotion regulation and emotion-related behaviors for parents of children with and without ADHD. The study emphasized specific parental emotion regulation strategies used in parent-child interactions. Of the 177 participating parents 55.4% had at least one child with ADHD. Participants were asked to complete questionnaires measuring their emotion regulation and emotion-related behaviors (supportive vs. unsupportive) with regard to a specific child, noting whether the child had ADHD. Results indicated that parents of children with ADHD used more emotion regulation strategies than parents of children without ADHD. No differences were found in emotion-related behaviors. Patterns of relations between reappraisal and suppression emotion regulation and supportive and non-supportive emotion-related behaviors revealed that parent reappraisal was an effective emotion regulation strategy for both subgroups, whereas suppression was ineffective only for parents of children without ADHD. These findings shed light on the relation of parent reappraisal and suppression strategies to emotion-related behaviors for different parenting experiences and emphasize the importance of addressing parent specific emotion regulation in parenting intervention programs.