Parenting predictors of anxiety in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
By: by Caryn E. Moulton.
Published: 2005
Language: eng
Number of pages: 145
Subjects: Attention-deficit-disordered children -- Attitudes.; Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.; Anxiety in children.; Parental influences.; Parenting.; Child rearing.
Description: Children with ADHD have higher levels of anxiety than children without ADHD (Angold et al., 1991). Parents of children with ADHD tend to get upset by their children's behaviours (Barkley et al., 1985) and use power assertive parenting techniques, a style of parenting that is associated with anxiety in children (Wood et al., 2001). Nevertheless, parenting factors associated with anxiety in children with ADHD has been largely unexplored. Thus, the first objective of the present study was to examine differences in parents' global child rearing styles, and attributions, emotions, and discipline practices in response to children's problematic behaviours between parents of children with and without ADHD. The second objective of this study was to examine how these parenting beliefs and behaviours predicted parent-reported (PR) and child-reported (CR) anxiety.The sample was comprised of 71 children with and 51 children without ADHD, and their parents. Children were between 9-14 years of age. Using a combination of established and relatively new measures of parenting, the results of the present study indicated that parents of children with ADHD were less authoritative in their parenting beliefs, experienced greater negative affect, and used more power assertive discipline practices than parents of children without ADHD. In addition, these parents were more likely to attribute their children's behaviours to internal causes but beyond their children's control, and to believe that these behaviours were more stable and global than parents of children without ADHD.It was expected that the above parenting features would be significant predictors of anxiety in children, and that in the context of negative/authoritarian parenting, children with higher levels of ADHD symptomatology would experience higher levels of anxiety (i.e., moderating model). Thus, the association between ADHD and anxiety would be enhanced in the presence of poor parenting. The results of the study indicated that parents' own anxiety was a significant predictor of children's anxiety. Although the main effects of both ADHD symptomatology and parenting were significant predictors of children's anxiety, together they did not predict children's anxiety over and above their main effects. Thus, the moderating model was not supported. A path analysis however, revealed that ADHD symptomatology mediated the relationship between certain parenting beliefs and behaviours and children's anxiety. Therefore, parenting may be indirectly impacting on children's anxiety through its more direct association with ADHD symptomatology. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
Notes: Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2005.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-102).