Expressed Emotion of Parents with Anxiety Disorders: Associations with Growth Trajectories of Parental Warmth and Discipline Consistency over Six Years

Background: Parental expressed emotion (EE), which assesses parent attitudes of criticism (CRIT) and emotion over-involvement (EOI), has gained increasing attention in child and adolescent psychiatry. However, the role of EE in parents with anxiety disorders remains unclear. Longitudinal research is scarce regarding whether parental EE predicts trajectories of parenting behaviors, such as warmth and discipline consistency, from childhood to adolescence in offspring without pre-existing anxiety disorders.Methods: A total of 132 parents (81% mothers) with a current anxiety disorder completed the Five-Minute Speech Sample procedure about their child without a current anxiety disorder (M age = 8.69 years at Time 1; 58% female). The speech samples were coded into high or low overall EE, CRIT, and EOI. Over five time points throughout late childhood and adolescence, youth reported parental warmth, and parents reported inconsistent discipline (M age = 15.81 years at Time 5).Results: Measurement invariance was established for longitudinal warmth and inconsistent discipline data. Both warmth and inconsistent discipline showed linear declines. At Time 1, overall EE and CRIT were associated with lower warmth, while EOI was associated with higher warmth. Longitudinally, EOI —but not overall EE or CRIT—predicted slower rates of decreases in inconsistent discipline from Time 1 to Time 5.Conclusions: These findings highlight specific developmental pathways linking parental EE, CRIT, and EOI with parenting behaviors concurrently and longitudinally among parents with anxiety disorders. Future research should explore warmth and inconsistent discipline as potential mediators between parental EE and pediatric disorders to inform targeted intervention strategies.