By studying the impact of paternal anxiety and depression on children’s behavioral and cognitive development, researchers at McGill University have highlighted a surprising link.
- If previous work showed that high levels of anxiety in parents are linked to poorer behavioral and cognitive outcomes in children, a study from McGill University sheds new light on the father-child bond.
- The team found that mild anxiety or depressive symptoms in fathers were associated with fewer behavioral difficulties in children and better scores on an IQ test.
- However, additional studies are needed. None of the factors examined by the researchers could explain the link discovered.
If the role of mothers’ stress, anxiety and depression on the behavioral and cognitive development of children is well established, less is known about the consequences of fathers’ psychological disorders on their children. University researchers McGill recently conducted a study on this subject, and their results were quite unexpected.
Father’s mental health: children do not seem affected by paternal anxiety
The team from the Canadian university first measured the fathers’ anxiety and depressive symptoms during their partner’s pregnancy and again six to eight years later. The data collected shed new light on the link between dads’ mental health and child development.
“Our results show that symptoms of anxiety and/or depression reported by fathers are not associated with poorer behavioral and cognitive outcomes in their children, as previous studies have shown,” explains the study’s first author, Sherri Lee Jones, lead author of the study and research associate at the Douglas Research Center, in a communicated published on November 2, 2023.
And even on the contrary: children whose fathers had slightly higher anxiety or depressive symptoms (while remaining light) than the other volunteers, presented fewer behavioral and emotional difficulties at around six to eight years old. For example, they were able to sit still for long periods of time, rarely lost their composure, and had a good attention span.
“On the other hand, symptoms of anxiety and depression are more students in mothers, both at birth and in mid-childhood, were associated with poorer behavioral outcomes in children aged six to eight years.”specify the authors.
The researchers also stress that it is important to note that their results cannot be generalized to parents suffering from clinical depression and anxiety, where the consequences may be more severe on the development of the little ones.
Anxiety disorder in parents: listening to the child
In their article published in the journal in Frontiers in Psychology on November 1, the scientists clarified that none of the factors they examined could explain the link discovered between the fathers’ symptoms of anxiety or depression and the children’s results on cognitive tests.
“Further studies are needed to understand the respective roles and combined contribution of parents in child development,” explains the Pr Tina Montreuil who directed the work. Our results, like others, highlight the importance of supporting people in the transition to parenthood. They also highlight the importance of parental attunement. This term refers to the parent’s ability to respond adaptively to their child’s cues, carefully adjusting their response to the child’s needs, in a given situation.“
The expert adds: “Given that greater parental attunement is associated with children’s cognitive and social skills, a possible explanation would be that the fathers included in our study sample demonstrated greater attunement toward their child for “ compensate for “environmental risk factors, such as maternal depressive or anxiety symptoms, or other known predictive factors.”
