Paternal Anxiety in Relation to Toddler Anxiety: The Mediating Role of Maternal Behavior

Despite robust investigations examining the impact of maternal anxiety and parenting behaviors and child anxiety risk, less is understood about the impact of paternal anxiety and parenting behaviors on child anxiety risk, particularly within the broader family context. An Actor Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) was used to examine whether paternal anxiety longitudinally predicted child anxiety risk indirectly through maternal and paternal parenting behaviors, while controlling for maternal anxiety. Both fathers and mothers of 12- to 30-month-olds (n = 94) provided self-report of their anxiety and parenting behaviors. Child inhibited temperament (i.e., anxiety risk) was coded. Two APIMs separately considering encouragement of independence and overprotection were examined. These models revealed no direct relation between parent and child anxiety while controlling for parenting behaviors. Models did suggest that paternal anxiety is indirectly linked with future child anxiety through lower maternal encouragement of independence, but not through maternal overprotection or paternal parenting behaviors.