Abstract
This research examined the relationship between recalled challenging parenting behavior (CPB) and adult anxiety and aimed to determine the underlying latent factors involved in CPB. CPB is a novel parenting construct that involves the encouragement of children to go beyond their own limits and engage with concepts they may find scary or that destabilises them, in a playful and fun way. Participants in the current study were 386 undergraduate psychology students (M age = 19.89 years, SD = 4.6; range 17–56). Questionnaire measures of CPB, anxiety, and social anxiety were delivered to participants via an online survey. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted using Principle Axis Factoring with Oblimin rotation. This identified three latent constructs underlying adults recall of CPB during childhood; parental encouragement of social assertion (‘Social’), parental encouragement to engage in novel or new situations (‘Novelty’), and intentional teasing (‘Teasing’) CPB. Both mother and father Social and Novelty CPB was associated with lower report of adult anxiety. However, only fathers Teasing was able to predict adult anxiety.
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Author contributions
R.S.L. designed and executed the study, conducted data analyses, and wrote the paper. L.F.M. collaborated with the analyses and writing of the paper. J.L.H. collaborated with the design, analyses and writing of the paper.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Ethical approval for this study was obtained from Macquarie University Human Research Ethics Committee.
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Lazarus, R.S., McLellan, L.F. & Hudson, J.L. Recalled Challenging Parenting Behavior and Anxiety in Adulthood: An Exploratory Retrospective Cohort Study. J Child Fam Stud 27, 1216–1227 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0919-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0919-x