The relationship between parent perfectionism and childhood anxiety of their children in female Refah bank employees in Tehran

Abstract

Although many studies have investigated the relationship between perfectionism and anxiety among the adults, little is known about the manifestations of the effects of parent perfectionism on anxiety of children in Iran. This study was conducted to examine the relationship between positive and negative perfectionism of mothers whit anxiety of their children in an Iranian sample. Besides the study of effects of mother's perfectionism and how can make serious problems for their children is another aim of this research. The study was consisted of 150 women of Refah Bank employees and their 8–15 years old children, which were selected by a multi-stage random cluster sampling. In order to evaluation, the positive and negative perfectionism scale and the revised children's manifest anxiety were assessed. After data collection, Pearson correlation and stepwise regression, using SPSS were conducted. Results showed that positive perfectionism of mothers was not correlated significantly with their child's anxiety. However, mothers’ negative perfectionism was associated positively with children anxiety which was significant at 0.01 probability level. Analysis of stepwise regression showed that mothers’ perfectionism predicted anxiety of their child. It can be concluded that negative perfectionism of mothers can directly and indirectly have negative effects on children and provide serious problems for them. Our findings indicate that although we must take care of unhealthy and neurotic consequences of negative perfectionism but positive striving for perfection can help us to improve in some aspects.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his/her declaration of competing interest.