Background:  Anxiety aggregates in families. Environmental factors, such as modelling of anxious behaviours, are assumed to play a causal role in the development of child anxiety. We investigated the predictive value of paternal and maternal anxiety (lifetime anxiety disorders and expressed parental anxiety) on infants’ fear and avoidance during encounters with social and nonsocial novel stimuli in a social referencing (SR) paradigm. Methods:  A total of 122 12‐month‐old infants participated in this study separately with their fathers and mothers (parents with lifetime: social anxiety disorders [n = 47], other types of anxiety disorders [n = 33], comorbid social and other types of anxiety disorders [n = 52] and without anxiety disorders [n = 112]). Infants were confronted with a stranger and a mechanical dinosaur as novel stimuli in two SR situations. Infants’ avoidance as well as fear and parents’ expressed anxiety were observed. Infants’ behavioural inhibition (BI) was separately observed in structured tasks. Results:  Parental lifetime anxiety disorders did not significantly predict infant fear or avoidance. Expressed parental anxiety interacted with BI to significantly predict infant avoidance, revealing a positive association between expressed parental anxiety and infant avoidance among infants with moderate‐to‐high BI. The association between infant avoidance and expressed parental anxiety was not significantly different for mothers and fathers, pointing to an equally important role of fathers at this young age. Infant fear was significantly predicted by infant BI, but not by expressed parental anxiety. Conclusions:  Infants with a temperamental disposition for anxiety (BI) may learn from both paternal and maternal anxious signals and become avoidant towards novelty when their parents express anxiety. This link between expressed parental anxiety and infant avoidance for moderate‐to‐high BI children, that seems to hold across contexts and to be independent of lifetime parental anxiety disorders, may be a mechanism explaining early intergenerational transmission of anxiety.

Mental illness is highly prevalent and runs in families. Mental disorders are considered to enhance the risk for the development of psychopathology in the offspring. This heightened risk is related to the separate and joint effects of inherited genetic vulnerabilities for psychopathology and environmental influences. The early years of life are suggested to be a key developmental phase in the intergenerational psychopathology transmission. Available evidence supports the idea that early exposure to parental psychopathology, during the pregnancy and first postpartum year, may be related to child psychological functioning beyond the postpartum period, up to adulthood years. This not only highlights the importance of intervening early to break the chain of intergenerational transmission of psychopathology but also raises the question of whether early interventions targeting parental mental disorders in this period may alleviate these prolonged adverse effects in the infant offspring. The current article focuses on the specific risk of psychopathology conveyed from mentally ill parents to the offspring during the pregnancy and first postpartum year. We first present a summary of the available evidence on the associations of parental perinatal mental illness with infant psychological outcomes at the behavioral, biological, and neurophysiological levels. Next, we address the effects of early interventions and discuss whether these may mitigate the early intergenerational transmission of risk for psychopathology. The summarized evidence supports the idea that psychopathology-related changes in parents’ behavior and physiology in the perinatal period are related to behavioral, biological, and neurophysiological correlates of infant psychological functioning in this period. These alterations may constitute risk for later development of child and/or adult forms of psychopathology and thus for intergenerational transmission. Targeting psychopathology or mother-infant interactions in isolation in the postnatal period may not be sufficient to improve outcomes, whereas interventions targeting both maternal psychopathology and mother-infant interactions seem promising in alleviating the risk of early transmission.

Many mothers experience difficulties after the birth of a baby. Mindful parenting may have benefits for mothers and babies, because it can help mothers regulate stress, and be more attentive towards themselves and their babies, which may have positive effects on their responsivity. This study examined the effectiveness of Mindful with your baby, an 8-week mindful parenting group training for mothers with their babies. The presence of the babies provides on-the-spot practicing opportunities and facilitates generalization of what is learned. Forty-four mothers with their babies (0–18 months), who were referred to a mental health clinic because of elevated stress or mental health problems of the mother, infant (regulation) problems, or mother-infant interaction problems, participated in 10 groups, each comprising of three to six mother-baby dyads. Questionnaires were administered at pretest, posttest, 8-week follow-up, and 1-year follow-up. Dropout rate was 7%. At posttest, 8-week follow-up, and 1-year follow-up, a significant improvement was seen in mindfulness, self-compassion, mindful parenting, (medium to large effects), as well as in well-being, psychopathology, parental confidence, responsivity, and hostility (small to large effects). Parental stress and parental affection only improved at the first and second follow-ups, respectively (small to medium effects), and maternal attention and rejection did not change. The infants improved in their positive affectivity (medium effect) but not in other aspects of their temperament. Mindful with your baby is a promising intervention for mothers with babies who are referred to mental health care because of elevated stress or mental health problems, infant (regulation) problems, or mother-infant interaction problems.

Background: Anxiety runs in families. Observational learning of anxious behavior from parents with anxiety disorders plays an important role in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety. We investigated the link between parental anxiety (parental lifetime anxiety disorders and expressed parental anxiety) and toddler fear/avoidance during social referencing (SR) situations. Method: Toddlers (N = 117) participated with both parents (with lifetime social anxiety disorder, other nonsocial anxiety disorders, lifetime comorbid social and other anxiety disorders, or without anxiety disorders) in a longitudinal study. Behavioral inhibition (BI) was measured at 12 months via observational tasks. At 30 months, children were confronted with a stranger and a remote-control robot in SR situations, separately with each parent. Children's fear and avoidance, and parents' expressions of anxiety, encouragement, and overcontrol were observed. Results: Toddlers of parents with lifetime social anxiety disorder (alone and comorbid with other anxiety disorders) showed more fear/avoidance in SR situations than toddlers of parents without anxiety disorders, while the effect of other anxiety disorders alone was not significant. Although expressed parental anxiety at 30 months in SR situations did not significantly predict toddlers' fear/avoidance, higher levels of expressed anxiety at 12 months in SR situations by parents with comorbid social and other anxiety disorders predicted higher levels of fear/avoidance. BI at 12 months predicted toddlers' fear/avoidance only with mothers, but not with fathers. Conclusions: Parental lifetime social anxiety disorders may be a stronger predictor of children's fear/avoidance than parents' expressions of anxiety in SR situations in toddlerhood. End of infancy may be a sensitive time for learning of anxiety from parents with comorbid lifetime social and nonsocial anxiety disorders in SR situations. Fathers are as important as mothers in the transmission of anxiety via SR. Furthermore, children may act relatively free of their early temperament in SR situations with fathers.

Research into anxiety has largely ignored the dynamics of family systems in anxiety development. Coparenting refers to the quality of coordination between individuals responsible for the upbringing of children and links different subsystems within the family, such as the child, the marital relationship, and the parents. This review discusses the potential mechanisms and empirical findings regarding the bidirectional relations of parent and child anxiety with coparenting. The majority of studies point to bidirectional associations between greater coparenting difficulties and higher levels of anxiety. For example, the few available studies suggest that paternal and perhaps maternal anxiety is linked to lower coparental support. Also, research supports the existence of inverse links between coparenting quality and child anxiety. A child’s reactive temperament appears to have adverse effects on particularly coparenting of fathers. A conceptual model is proposed that integrates the role of parental and child anxiety, parenting, and coparenting, to guide future research and the development of clinical interventions. Future research should distinguish between fathers’ and mothers’ coparenting behaviors, include parental anxiety, and investigate the coparental relationship longitudinally. Clinicians should be aware of the reciprocal relations between child anxiety and coparenting quality, and families presenting for treatment who report child (or parent) anxiety should be assessed for difficulties in coparenting. Clinical approaches to bolster coparenting quality are called for.

The present study investigated the associations of mothers' and fathers' lifetime depression and anxiety symptoms, and of infants' negative temperament with parents' and infants' gaze, facial expressions of emotion, and synchrony. We observed infants' (age between 3.5 and 5.5 months, N = 101) and parents' gaze and facial expressions during 4-min naturalistic face-to-face interactions. Parents' lifetime symptoms of depression and anxiety were assessed with clinical interviews, and infants' negative temperament was measured with standardized observations. Parents with more depressive symptoms and their infants expressed less positive and more neutral affect. Parents' lifetime anxiety symptoms were not significantly related to parents' expressions of affect, while they were linked to longer durations of gaze to parent, and to more positive and negative affect in infants. Parents' lifetime depression or anxiety was not related to synchrony. Infants' temperament did not predict infants' or parents' interactive behavior. The study reveals that more depression symptoms in parents are linked to more neutral affect from parents and from infants during face-to-face interactions, while parents' anxiety symptoms are related to more attention to parent and less neutral affect from infants (but not from parents).

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) runs in families. Building on recent theoretical approaches, this review focuses on potential environmental pathways for parent-to-child transmission of GAD. First, we address child acquisition of a generalized pattern of fearful/anxious and avoidant responding to potential threat from parents via verbal information and via modeling. Next, we address how parenting behaviors may contribute to maintenance of fearful/anxious and avoidant reactions in children. Finally, we consider intergenerational transmission of worries as a way of coping with experiential avoidance of strong negative emotions and with intolerance of uncertainty. We conclude that parents with GAD may bias their children's processing of potential threats in the environment by conveying the message that the world is not safe, that uncertainty is intolerable, that strong emotions should be avoided, and that worry helps to cope with uncertainty, thereby transmitting cognitive styles that characterize GAD. Our review highlights the need for research on specific pathways for parent-to-child transmission of GAD.

Earlier evidence has revealed a bi‐directional causal relationship between anxiety and attention biases in adults and children. This study investigated the prospective and concurrent relations between anxiety and attentional bias in a sample of 89 families (mothers, fathers, and first‐born children). Parents’ and children's attentional bias was measured when children were 7.5 years old, using both a visual probe task and visual search task with angry versus happy facial expressions. Generalized and social anxiety symptoms in parents and children were measured when children were 4.5 and 7.5 years old. Anxiety in parents and children was prospectively (but not concurrently) related to their respective attentional biases to threat: All participants showed a larger attentional bias to threat in the visual search (but not in the visual probe) task if they were more anxious at the 4.5 (but not at the 7.5) year measurement. Moreover, parents’ anxiety levels were prospectively predictive of the visual search attentional bias of their children after controlling for child anxiety. More anxiety in mothers at 4.5 years was related to a faster detection of angry among happy faces, while more anxiety in fathers predicted a faster detection of happy among angry faces in children at 7.5 years. We found no direct association between parental and child attentional biases. Our study contributes to the recently emerging literature on attentional biases as a potential mechanism in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety by showing that parents’ anxiety rather than parents’ attentional bias contributes to the intergenerational transmission of risk for child anxiety.