Inconsistent parenting and anxiety in the child

Abstract

I wish to report my surprise upon reading the article “Trait Anxiety and Parental-Child Rearing Behavior: Support as a Moderator Variable?” by C.-W. Kohlmann, A. Schumacher, & R. Streit (1988). It turned out that the authors had researched a topic which colleagues and myself had reported on many years ago (Rosenthal, Finkelstein, Ni, & Robertson, 1959; Rosenthal, 1962), although their approach and methodology were more refined than ours. They evaluated the influence of both parents on the child, whereas we considered only the mother-child relationship (MCR). What prompted this commentary were two findings in their article which were very divergent from ours. I believe that trying to resolve these discrepancies will be rewarding.