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Maternal Anxiety and Toddler Inhibited Temperament Predict Maternal Socialization of Worry.

ABSTRACT: Parent emotion socialization refers to the process by which parents impart their values and beliefs about emotion expressivity to their children. Parent emotion socialization requires attention as a construct that develops in its own right. The socialization of child worry, in particular, has implications for children's typical socioemotional development, as well as their maladaptive development towards anxiety outcomes. Existing theories on emotion socialization, anxiety, and parent-child relationships guided our investigation of both maternal anxiety and toddler inhibited temperament as predictors of change in mothers' unsupportive (i.e., distress, punitive, and minimizing) responses to toddler worry across 1 year of toddlerhood. Participants included 139 mother-toddler dyads. Mothers reported on their own anxiety and their emotion socialization responses to toddler worry. We assessed toddler inhibited temperament through a mother-report survey of shyness and observational coding of dysregulated fear. Maternal anxiety but not child inhibited temperament predicted distress reactions and punitive responses, whereas maternal anxiety and toddler dysregulated fear both uniquely predicted minimizing responses. These results support continued investigation of worry socialization as a developmental outcome of both parent and child characteristics.

SUBMITTER: Kiel EJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8340527 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundYouths disengaged from the education system and labour force (i.e. 'Not in Education, Employment, or Training' or 'NEET') are often at reduced capacity to flourish and thrive as adults. Developmental precursors to NEET status may extend back to temperamental features, though this - and possible mediators of such associations such as attention deficit hyperactivity (ADHD) symptoms and antisocial behaviours (ASB) - have yet to be directly tested. This study investigates if i) difficult temperament in toddlerhood associates with NEET status in adulthood and ii) different subdomains of ADHD (i.e. hyperactivity-impulsivity vs. inattention) in late childhood and ASB in adolescence partially explain this pathway.MethodsParticipants were 6,240 mother-child dyads (60.7% female) from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Mothers reported on their child's (a) difficult temperament (i.e. mood, intensity and adaptability) at age 2 and (b) ADHD symptoms at ages 8 and 10. Participants reported their own ASB at age 14 and NEET status in adulthood (ages 18, 20, 22 and 23).ResultsFirst, higher levels of difficult temperament in toddlerhood directly associated with an increased probability of being NEET in adulthood. Second, this effect was carried through hyperactivity-impulsivity, but not inattention, in late childhood, and ASB in adolescence; this demonstrates differential contribution to the pathway between the ADHD dimensions, with symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity playing a prominent role.ConclusionsEarly difficult temperament is a vulnerability factor for NEET status in adulthood. Our findings suggest that one developmental pathway for this vulnerability manifests through increased hyperactivity-impulsivity in childhood and ASB in adolescence. Of note, difficult temperament, as measured here, reflects difficulties in emotional and behavioural self-control (e.g. low adaptability and high intensity negative emotional expressions). Our results, therefore, suggest a prominent developmental role for lack of self-control from toddlerhood onwards in increasing risk for NEET.

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Maternal Anxiety and Toddler Inhibited Temperament Predict Maternal Socialization of Worry.

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