CHILDREN´S ANXIETY AND PARENTING STYLES IN FAMILY IN EIGHT-YEAR-OLDS

Anxiety is a recurrent topic in personality psychology of today. According to Z. Matějček's (1991) estimation, the issue of anxiety assumes the third place as for the number of clients in children's counselling service (behind the issue of intellectual capabilities and ADHD) in the Czech Republic. In children where it occurs to a higher degree, it can have a negative impact on their socialisation, achievements, development of self-confidence. The most influential factor in developing an anxious personality appears to be family environment. If the family fails to satisfy the child's basic needs – feeling of security and confidence – the child's development can be in jeopardy. The current research is concentrated on how the style of parenting in families (the so-called parenting styles) is related to anxiety in children at a younger school age. The aim of the research is to find out what relationship there is between the individual components of parenting in families (positive – negative component, component of requirements – freedom) and anxiety in eight-year-olds. These relationships were inquired into from mothers' perspective by means of questionnaire surveys (Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale and Questionnaire for acquiring the parenting style in family). The data from 407 mothers of eight-year-old children have been analysed. An assumption that anxiety in children of younger school age is significantly influenced by parenting styles in family has been confirmed. The most anxious children appear to be children raised in families with a negative parental emotional involvement towards the child and at the same time with discordant control. They were also some differences in the importance of individual components of parenting by fathers and mothers for anxious orientation of the child identified.