title: Paternal Autonomy Restriction, Neighborhood Safety, and Child Anxiety Trajectory in Community Youth.
abstract: Intrusive parenting, primarily examined among middle to upper-middle class mothers, has been positively associated with the presence and severity of anxiety in children. This study employed cross-sectional linear regression and longitudinal latent growth curve analyses to evaluate the main and interactive effects of early childhood paternal autonomy restriction (AR) and neighborhood safety (NS) on the trajectory of child anxiety in a sample of 596 community children and fathers from the NICHD SECYD. Longitudinal analyses revealed that greater paternal AR at age 6 was actually associated with greaterdecreasesin child anxiety in later childhood. Cross-sectional analyses revealed main effects for NS across childhood, and interactive effects of paternal AR and NS that were present only in early childhood, whereby children living in safer neighborhoods demonstrated increased anxiety when experiencing lower levels of paternal AR. Findings further clarify forwhomandwhenpaternal AR impacts child anxiety in community youth.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Boston University.
authors.forename: Christine E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Cooper-Vince
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Boston University.
authors.forename: Priscilla T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Boston University.
authors.forename: Donna B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Pincus
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Florida International University.
authors.forename: Jonathan S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Comer
keywords: autonomy; child anxiety; father; latent growth modeling; neighborhood safety