Anxious children and their parents: What do they expect?

Assigned 73 children, ages 7 to 14, to 1 of 3 groups (anxious, clinical con trol, and nonclinical control) according to their diagnostic status. Within the anxious group, children were assigned to 1 of 2 further groups on the basis of self-reported parental anxiety-either the child anxiety only group or the child + parent anxiety group. All children completed an experimenta l task (giving a brief talk in front of a video camera), which was the focu s for a series of structured family discussions between the child and his o r her parents. The aims of the study were to measure and compare across gro ups (a) the evaluations of children and their parents regarding the child's predicted anxiety and skill level and (b) the effect of the family discuss ion on children's expectations. Results indicated that, prior to the family discussion, anxious children's expectations of their future performance di d not differ from those of control children. Similarly, there were no diffe rences in children's expectations between the child anxiety group and the c hild + parent anxiety group. Second, compared to mothers in the child anxie ty group, mothers in the child + parent anxiety group expected that their c hildren would be more anxious and more likely to choose an avoidant problem solution (but not less skilled). Finally, the family discussion was found to produce no changes in anxious children's expectations of their future pe rformance. The implications of these findings are discussed.