How can we best support parents to reduce children's anxiety?

Participant details
Name and surname
Karen Rienks
Home institution
University of Amsterdam
Location of the Training School
Faro, Portugal
Dates for the Training School
Thursday, July 4, 2024 to Friday, July 5, 2024
Training School Title
Family support and research for social impact
Research interests
Children; anxiety; interventions; parenting
TS details
Knowledge and skill acquisition

Generating social impact was an important topic of the training school. It was very inspiring to hear through the lectures and presentations how other researchers make social impact, this provided me with many ideas to apply within my own project.

Additionally, we also learned a lot about what Eurofamnet has done in terms of their European-level collaborations to improve family support across Europe. For instance, we discussed key principles of high-quality family support. This is something I will definitely keep in mind in my own research.

Outputs

During the training school, I presented the setup and some initial results of my research on children’s anxiety. Anxiety is one of the most common mental health problems in childhood and causes severe and persistent impairment in children’s lives. Parents can play a key role in the development of children’s anxiety symptoms.  Yet, the effects of parent-focused interventions are limited and inconsistent. Traditional randomized trials of ‘package deal’ interventions provide little insight into what specific parental risk factors should be targeted to most effectively reduce children’s anxiety. Teasing apart the effects of these interventions is important to identify the active ingredients of these interventions to reduce anxiety in children. The studies of the PhD project will contribute to our understanding of the role that parents play in children’s anxiety. Knowledge of which parental risk factors should be targeted can guide future intervention development. Identifying potential mediating variables will provide more insight in the mechanisms of intervention components. Knowledge on who benefits from parent-focused interventions components to reduce anxiety in children and who does not, can help match interventions to the needs of individual families.

Future collaborations

There are no specific plans to collaborate yet, but I would be very keen to collaborate with other European researchers in the field of family support!