Relationship of the Parenting Styles of Overstressed Mothers with the Anxiety of their Children

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between parenting styles of overstressed mothers with their children's anxiety. A total of 250 elementary school children and their mothers participated. First, the mothers were screened using the Parenting Stress Index (PSI, 1990). Based on the screening, 80 overstressed mothers were selected and completed a parenting Styles Inventory (Baumrind, 1973). In addition, their children with an average age of 10 years and 6 months completed the Reynold's Children Anxiety Questionnaire (1982). Multiple regression analysis revealed that an authoritarian parenting style was negatively related to children's anxiety. Furthermore, overstress of mothers and one component of it, social isolation, positively related to children's anxiety. In addition, one of the other components of overstress in mothers, role limitation, negatively related to children's anxiety (P< 0/05).