Parenting Styles, Coping Strategies, and Anxiety Symptoms in Pakistani School-Age Children: Examining the Mediating Role of Coping

Abstract

Childhood anxiety is among the most prevalent mental health concerns worldwide, with increasing evidence highlighting its burden in low- and middle-income countries, including pakistan. although parenting styles are recognized as key determinants of children’s emotional development, the mechanisms through which they influence anxiety symptoms remain insufficiently explored in pakistani school-age populations. the present study investigates whether coping strategies mediate the relationship between parenting styles and anxiety symptoms among children aged 7–12 years in urban Pakistan. A cross-sectional, correlational, multi-informant design will be employed. data will be collected from approximately 300–350 parent–child dyads recruited through cluster sampling from government and private schools in lahore. parents will complete the parenting styles and dimensions questionnaire (psdq) and the spence children’s anxiety scale–parent version (scas-p), while children will complete the kidcope measure using a vignette-based, researcher-assisted administration format. Mediation analyses will be conducted using hayes’ process macro (model 4) with 5,000 bootstrap samples, controlling for child age, gender, and socioeconomic status. cluster-robust standard errors will be applied to account for school-level clustering. it is hypothesised that authoritarian parenting will be positively associated with child anxiety, while authoritative parenting will be negatively associated. furthermore, maladaptive coping is expected to mediate the relationship between parenting styles and anxiety symptoms. Findings are expected to clarify culturally embedded psychological mechanisms linking family environment to child mental health outcomes and to inform the development of evidence-based parenting interventions and school-based anxiety prevention programs in pakistan and comparable south asian contexts.