Will My Anxiety Affect My Child?

Video Transcript

My wife recently became pregnant with our first child. Since I suffer with anxiety disorder, will my anxiety affect my child?

Unfortunately, yes! It’s not because of a genetic influence but because of a behavioral influence.

Up until recently, it was thought that there was a genetic predisposition to the development of anxiety disorder since anxiety disorder seems to run in families (research has shown that there is a one-in-four chance that if one family member has an anxiety disorder, another family member will develop it).

However, research and our personal and professional experiences have shown the link between family members and anxiety is primarily because of environmental reasons. For instance, research has shown that anxious parents raise anxious children [1][2]. Moreover, research has also shown that early-life trauma can produce anxious children [3][4].

Furthermore, research has also found a link between maternal stress, depression, and anxiety on fetal neurobehavioral development [5][6][7]. Consequently, pregnant moms have a direct influence on the developing child. Diet, amount of rest, amount of stress, amount of exercise, connection with the unborn, personal mental health, and so on all affect the unborn in potentially lasting ways.

To give your child the best opportunity to grow up healthy and avoid issues with anxiety, it’s wise to address YOUR anxiety so that your behaviors have a positive effect on your developing child rather than an anxious effect. Doing your recovery work now will influence healthy behavior in your child.

We learn 80 percent of our system of beliefs by age eight, and 90 percent is heavily influenced directly or indirectly by those we spend most of our time with during our formative years. Becoming psychologically and emotionally healthy yourself will have the most influence on your child’s development.

This is good news! We as parents can positively influence our children's development by becoming healthy and then using a healthy parenting style. Overcoming anxiety disorder yourself and learning healthy ways of interacting with others can stop the anxiety disorder behavioral torch from being passed to yet another generation.
Healthy parents raise healthy children!

So, the most important thing you can do to give your child the best opportunity to avoid anxiety disorder is to overcome it yourself. The sooner you do this work, the more quickly it will benefit you and your children.