Abstract
This study investigated the links between parental worry, parental over-control and adolescent social anxiety in parent-adolescent dyads. Using a longitudinal sample of adolescents (Mage = 14.28) and their parents (224 mother–daughter, 234 mother–son, 51 father–daughter, and 47 father–son dyads), comparisons were conducted using cross-lagged path models across two time points. We used adolescent reports of social anxiety and feelings of being overly controlled by parents, and mother and father self-reports of worries. Our results show that boys’ social anxiety predicted higher perceived parental overcontrol, whereas girls’ social anxiety predicted higher paternal worry over time. In addition, girls’ reports of feeling overly controlled by parents predicted higher maternal worry but lower paternal worry over time. For boys, feeling overly controlled predicted less social anxiety instead. The study illustrates how mothers and fathers might differ in their behaviors and concerns regarding their children’s social anxiety and feelings of overcontrol.
Highlights
The relationship between children’s social anxiety and perceived parental over-control has been well established in previous literature
What Are the Links Between Parent‐Rated Worry, Adolescent‐Reported Parental Over‐Control, and Early Adolescent Social Anxiety Over Time?
To address our first research question, we examined the longitudinal links between adolescent social anxiety, adolescent-reported parental over-control, and parentreported worry
Summary
The relationship between children’s social anxiety and perceived parental over-control has been well established in previous literature (for extensive reviews, see [1,2,3]). Parental over-control of children’s everyday activities is believed to limit children’s experience of novel situations [2, 5], which might be important for the development of social anxiety, as it involves discomfort and inhibition predominantly in new social situations and contexts [6]. By restraining opportunities for their children to become more effective in new social settings, parents might unintentionally expedite their socially anxious children towards increased social failures. By hindering their child from practicing social behaviors in novel situations, parents could limit the potential for the child to become confident, comfortable, and less anxious around others
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