Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

We present an integrative review of the development of child anxiety, drawing on a number of strands of research. Family aggregation and genetic studies indicate raised vulnerability to anxiety in offspring of adults with the disorder (e.g. the temperamental style of behavioural inhibition, or information processing biases). Environmental factors are also important; these include adverse life events and exposure to negative information or modelling. Parents are likely to be key, although not unique, sources of such influences, particularly if they are anxious themselves. Some parenting behaviours associated with child anxiety, such as overprotection, may be elicited by child characteristics, especially in the context of parental anxiety, and these may serve to maintain child disorder. Emerging evidence emphasizes the importance of taking the nature of child and parental anxiety into account, of constructing assessments and interventions that are both disorder specific, and of considering bidirectional influences.

Original publication

DOI

10.1017/S0033291709005157

Type

Journal article

Journal

Psychol Med

Publication Date

09/2009

Volume

39

Pages

1413 - 1423

Keywords

Adult, Animals, Anxiety Disorders, Arousal, Child, Disease Models, Animal, Epistasis, Genetic, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Humans, Life Change Events, Macaca mulatta, Models, Psychological, Parenting, Phenotype, Risk Factors, Serotonin Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins, Social Environment