Study: Kids who grow up with anxious parents take on their anxiety

Children might observe their parents’ fear or worries in their actions or overhearing their words, and then adopt those same worries. Another cause could be what the study calls “negative parenting behaviors”—unnecessarily shielding a child from something that a parent fears. Or on the flip side, parents might perpetuate the problem by allowing a child’s existing anxieties, like fear of heights or pain at the dentist, to dictate their parenting choices and allow their child to avoid those experiences, Eley says. A child’s anxiety could even be causing the parent’s anxiety.