Does Overprotective Parenting Lead to Anxiety in Children?

Have you ever worried you may be too overprotective as a parent? A recent study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships examined how overprotective parenting is related to emotional regulation and anxiety in children. Previous research had found that overprotective parenting is linked to anxiety in children, but researchers did not yet fully understand why this relationship exists. In this recent study, the researchers examined whether emotion regulation skills might explain the relationship between overprotective parenting and childhood anxiety.

For this study, 278 Swiss teenagers, ages 14 to 17, filled out questionnaires reporting on their parents’ level of overprotectiveness as well as their social anxiety symptoms and emotional regulation skills.

Main Findings

The study found that overprotectiveness in parents was linked to higher social anxiety in children (as in previous research). Overprotectiveness was also associated with emotional dysregulation (difficulty understanding and modulating emotions) in children, and emotional dysregulation was associated with social anxiety. The researchers used statistics to show that emotional dysregulation helped to explain some of the relationship between overprotective parenting and social anxiety.

Translation: Overprotective parenting may make children more emotionally dysregulated, which then increases their social anxiety. This may be because overprotective parents prevent their children from experiencing negative emotions and thus trying out different emotional regulation strategies to cope with negative emotions.

Limitations

This study has several important limitations. One is that it is based on the child’s report of their parents’ overprotectiveness, which may be biased. In addition, the questionnaire asked about the parents’ current level of overprotectiveness and did not assess overprotectiveness throughout childhood. Because this research is correlational, we cannot conclude overprotective parents cause social anxiety or poor emotional regulation. It is also possible that parents become more overprotective as a response to their child’s social anxiety or perceived poor emotional regulation rather than overprotectiveness leading to anxiety and emotional regulation issues.

It is important that any parents of anxious children know that this research does not mean they are to blame for their child’s anxiety. There are many factors that influence the development of social anxiety. However, this research does emphasize the importance of allowing children age-appropriate independence, as it can help them to build important skills like emotional regulation.

Overall Translation

This study, along with previous research, finds a link between overprotective parenting and social anxiety and suggests that this relationship may occur because overprotective parenting doesn’t give children the chance to develop their emotional regulation skills, which then increases the child’s risk of developing social anxiety. This study further suggests that in order to help a child with anxiety it may be useful to target both parenting skills and emotional regulation skills. It also provides further evidence that parents should step back and let their children experience negative emotions in order to learn how to cope with these situations independently.

How can parents avoid overprotective parenting and help their children to develop emotional regulation skills?

1. Let your child experience negative emotions. Our goal as parents should not be to remove any negative experiences from our children’s lives but rather to help them learn to cope with these negative experiences. Let them take age-appropriate risks and make mistakes. Facing difficult situations gives children a chance to practice emotional regulation skills.
2. Allow your child autonomy to make their own decisions whenever possible. When your child makes a decision themselves (even if it is the wrong decision), they learn to take responsibility for the consequences, and often these consequences involve practicing emotional regulation.
3. Help your child better understand their emotions. Talk about and label emotions whenever possible. Point out emotions in book and movie characters and in real life. Emotional dysregulation is characterized by difficulty identifying and understanding emotions. Helping your child to understand what they are feeling is the first step in learning how to accept and modulate those emotions.
4. Let children practice their own emotional regulation strategies. As children get older and learn how to regulate their own emotions, we as parents need to step back and let them work through them on their own. We can support this process and provide ideas when they are stuck, but it is important to remember that the goal is to regulate emotions independently rather than always relying on a parent to provide co-regulation.
5. Model coping skills for your child. Talk to them about how you handle difficult emotions and let them see and imitate you. Give them examples of how to approach conflicts and how to communicate their emotions.
6. Role-play difficult situations. If your child is anxious about a situation or doesn’t seem to know how to handle a challenge, act out the situation together and talk through how to respond and what coping strategies they could use.