A sizeable proportion of adults suffer from an anxiety disorder and many of those adults are parents. Parental anxiety, as well as dysfunctional family environment, contributes to both internalizing and externalizing problems in children. Specifically, family control, conflict, and cohesion have been shown to predict child internalizing and externalizing symptoms to varying degrees. However, few studies have examined the association between all three components in the same study: parental psychopathology, family environment, and child outcomes. The current study tested the relationships among these variables in a sample of 189 children (66% male, 93% Caucasian, mean age = 10.34 years). Family conflict predicted child externalizing symptoms for both mothers and fathers, and mediated the relationship between maternal anxiety and child externalizing symptoms. Family cohesion predicted child externalizing problems based on maternal report and mediated the relationship between maternal anxiety and child externalizing symptoms. Furthermore, family cohesion moderated the relationship between maternal anxiety and child internalizing symptoms. These findings provide preliminary support for the role of the family environment in the relationship between parental anxiety and child psychopathology, and these environmental variables may be important targets of intervention in families with elevated parental anxiety. / Master of Science

The effects of maternal stress on child behavior, especially externalizing problems such as aggression, defiance, and lack of self-control, are well-established within psychological literature. Few studies, however, have examined the effects of maternal stress on child internalizing problems, such as loneliness, withdrawal, and symptoms of anxiety and depression. Moreover, there is much research within developmental psychology to support the notion that parent-child co-regulation, sometimes called dyadic synchrony, can predict child behavioral outcomes. Currently, researchers lack an understanding of how this process can interact with maternal stress to predict child internalizing symptoms. The following thesis details a multi-method assessment which is designed to examine the mediating effect of co-regulation on the relationship between maternal stress and child internalizing symptoms. In this research project, mothers and their three-year-old children complete questionnaires and a challenging dyadic task to assess their current stress, internalizing symptoms, and co-regulation strategies. Co-regulation scores are assigned through a macro coding scheme developed by a behavioral observation coding team. Due to ongoing data collection, data from a comparable project were collected to test this hypothesis using similar self-report measures. This study may have significant implications for the effects of everyday parent-child interactions on future child health outcomes.