(PS12-37) Parental Emotion Regulation Difficulty as a Predictor of Later Family Accommodation in Child Anxiety

CBT treatments for childhood anxiety disorders often target parenting behaviors that may maintain or worsen child anxiety. One of these parenting behaviors is family accommodation (FA), or when a family modifies behaviors or routines in order to reassure or encourage an anxious child to avoid anxiety-provoking situations (Lebowitz et al., 2013). Obtaining a better understanding of the development of FA as a construct over time may lead to more successful targeting of FA in treatment. Cross-sectional findings demonstrate that child emotion regulation (ER, or the ways in which individuals can control their emotion responses; Gross, 1998) and FA may be mechanisms by which parental anxiety predicts later child anxiety outcomes (Kerns et al., 2017). However, relations among these variables have yet to be tested longitudinally. The current study investigated the development of family accommodation of child anxiety as a construct. Specifically, it was hypothesized that parental emotion regulation difficulties would predict higher parental accommodation of child anxiety over time.

One-hundred and sixty-eight mother-child dyads participated in a longitudinal study at child ages 2-years (Time 1), and 4-years (Time 2). At Time 1, mothers reported their overall ER using the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004), and their level of parenting experiential avoidance (a component of ER) using the Parenting Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (PAAQ; Cheron et al., 2009). Mothers also completed a behavioral measure of distress tolerance (another component of ER) called the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT; Lejuez et al., 2003). Family accommodation of child anxiety was measured via the Family Accommodation Scale (FAS; Lebowitz et al., 2013) at Time 2.

Maternal ER at Time 1, as measured by the DERS, was significantly related to FA at Time 2 (r = .24), but not to other measures of components of ER (the PASAT and PAAQ), nor was the PASAT or PAAQ significantly related to FA. In a linear regression analysis with the DERS as the predictor variable, maternal ER at Time 1 significantly predicted FA at Time 2 (t = 2.26, p = .027). When the PAAQ and PASAT were added to the model, however, the effect became non-significant, signifying that overall ER, as measured by the DERS, is not predictive of FA over and above other components of ER, as measured by the PAAQ and PASAT. These findings support the hypothesis that parental emotion regulation difficulties predict later parental accommodation. However, specific components of ER, such as experiential avoidance and distress tolerance, do not appear to predict later FA, and can in fact mask the overall effect of ER on FA when included in analysis models. Findings may implicate overall parental ER as an important target in child anxiety interventions to prevent the development of high parental FA over time.