Permissive parenting may promote the development of social anxiety

14th Febuary 2013 – A permissive parenting style has been linked to higher rates of social anxiety in children and adolescents, than other parenting styles.

The role of parenting in the development of social anxiety has been elucidated further thanks to a study by scientists at the University of Lagos. Children and adolescents were assessed on the basis of social anxiety, performance anxiety and the parenting style the individuals received.

Parenting style was classed as either permissive, authoritarian or authoritative.

Permissive parenting is where there are few or no rules and little or no controls is exerted over the children. So children are given complete freedom to make their life decisions and behave autonomously and independently.

Authoritarian parenting involves restrictive and punitive, and places firm limits and controls on children with little or no verbal exchange.

Authoritative parenting involves the use of behavioural and monitoring controls to guide and direct their children’s behaviour and provide them with reasons for their own actions.

The study found that permissive parenting tended to promote the highest level of social anxiety. This is in line with previous findings that this type of parenting style is associated with social incompetence and lack of self control. In particular, children brought up in a hybrid permissive/authoritarian parenting style (so no verbal exchange and no rules) had the highest level of social anxiety. Authoritative parenting had the lowest rate of social anxiety.

This research was published in Psychology Feb 2013.

Take home message

To prevent social anxiety in children, parents should take an authoritative approach to parenting. Communicate with your children, monitor their performance and give them the guidance. A hands off, permissive approach is more likely to lead to social anxiety in children as they can become less competent at controlling their emotions.

Journal reference:

http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperDownload.aspx?paperID=29221