Parenting and Anxiety: Bi-directional Relations in Young Children Karen R. Gouze 1 & Joyce Hopkins 2 & Fred B. Bryant 3 & John V. Lavigne 1 Published online: 8 November 2016 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016 Abstract Developmental psychopathologists have long pos- ited a reciprocal relation between parenting behaviors and the development of child anxiety symptoms. Yet, little empirical research has utilized a longitudinal design that would allow exploration of this bi-directional influence. The present study examined the reciprocal relations between parental respect for autonomy, parental hostility, and parental support, and the development of childhood anxiety during a critical develop- mental period-the transition from preschool to kindergarten and then first grade. Study participants included a community sample of 391 male and 405 female socioeconomically, racial- ly and ethnically diverse 4 to 6–7 year olds. 54 % of the sample was White, non-Hispanic, 16.8 % was African American, 20.4 % was Hispanic, 2.4 % were Asian and 4.4 % self-identified as Other or mixed race. Parent report and observational methodology were used. Parenting and anx- iety were found to interact reciprocally over time. Higher levels of age 4 anxiety led to reduced respect for child auton- omy at age 5. At age 4 higher levels of parental hostility led to small increases in age 5 anxiety, and increased age 5 anxiety led to increased levels of age 6 parent hostility. Parental support at age 5 resulted in decreased anxiety symptoms at age 6–7 while higher age 5 anxiety levels were associated with reductions in age 6–7 parental support. No relations were found between these variables at the younger ages. Although the magnitude of these findings was small, they suggest that early treatment for childhood anxiety should include both par- ent intervention and direct treatment of the child’ s anxiety symptoms. Keywords Anxiety . Parenting . Bi-directional effects Epidemiological studies of childhood anxiety reveal that anx- iety symptoms are often observed at an early age (Franz et al. 2013; Lavigne et al. 2009), persist throughout childhood (Beesdo et al. 2009), and occur with increasing frequency as children get older (Degnan et al. 2010). The frequency and persistence of these symptoms suggest that it is important to understand their etiology in order to facilitate the development of early prevention and intervention programs. While theoret- ical models of childhood anxiety posit a number of possible etiologies ranging from biological transmission to environ- mental factors (Dougherty et al. 2013), parenting remains of particular interest because of the potential malleability of par- enting attitudes and behaviors. Research studies have gener- ally established a relationship between parenting attitudes and behavior, and the development and maintenance of high levels of child anxiety symptoms (McLeod et al. 2007; Negreiros and Miller 2014); however, the direction of influence is less clear. While it has long been assumed that parental behavior influences child behavior, it has been suggested more recently that child anxiety shapes parenting behavior (Drake and Ginsburg 2012) as well, resulting in a transactional pattern which serves to perpetuate and strengthen both the child’ s anxiety symptoms and the parents’ maladaptive attitudes and Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10802-016-0223-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Karen R. Gouze kgouze@luriechildrens.org 1 Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (#10), Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’ s Hospital of Chicago, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, 225 East Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611, USA 2 Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, USA 3 Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA J Abnorm Child Psychol (2017) 45:1169–1180 DOI 10.1007/s10802-016-0223-z