As he climbs into the dentist's chair for the first time, three-year-old Danny clearly would rather be somewhere else. He's already squirming like a hooked trout and seems on the verge of tears. The most probable explanation for Danny's anxiety is:
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The office sound system is playing Neil Diamond again.
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Danny is just a nervous kid.
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Danny's mother, no fan of dentists herself, transmitted her own anxiety to her son.
Many dentists would blame Danny's nervousness on more, but a study at North Carolina State University suggests that the second explanation is correct. Researchers videotaped the dental debuts of 46 three-year-olds and noted any anxious behavior, from fidgeting to outright attempts to flee the chair.
Meanwhile, the mothers reported how anxious they felt about their child's examination and about their own dental visits. They also filled out questionnaires designed to estimate their child's day-to-day anxiety level.
The result: "A mother's anxiety did not appear to affect her child," says NCSU psychologist Lynne Baker-Ward. The best predictor of a kid's anxiety level inside the dentist's office, it turned out, was his anxiety level outside the dentist's office. Although nervous toddlers did have nervous moms, the mothers seemed to be responding to the kid's anxiety, rather than vice versa.
The researchers' conclusions were bolstered by an experiment in which some families watched a reassuring dental video before their appointment. Mothers who saw the video said they felt less nervous about their child's visit. If maternal anxiety were truly influencing the kids, the children should have been more relaxed, too. But the kids displayed as much anxious behavior as peers whose moms hadn't seen the video.
Parental anxiety may become more of a factor in later visits. The child's own dental experiences, as well as those of siblings and peers, probably play a greater role as well.