Pupillary Responses to Dynamic Negative Versus Positive Facial Expressions of Emotion in Children and Parents: Links to Depression and Anxiety.

Witnessing emotional expressions in others triggers physiological arousal in humans. The current study focused on pupil responses to emotional expressions in a community sample as a physiological index of arousal and attention. We explored the associations between parents' and offspring's responses to dynamic facial expressions of emotion, as well as the links between pupil responses and anxiety/depression. Children (N = 90, MAge = 10.13, range = 7.21-12.94, 47 girls) participated in this lab study with one of their parents (47 mothers). Pupil responses were assessed in a computer task with dynamic happy, angry, fearful, and sad expressions, while participants verbally labeled the emotion displayed on the screen as quickly as possible. Parents and children reported anxiety and depression symptoms in questionnaires. Both parents and children showed stronger pupillary responses to negative versus positive expressions, and children's responses were overall stronger than those of parents. We also found links between the pupil responses of parents and children to negative, especially to angry faces. Child pupil responses were related to their own and their parents' anxiety levels and to their parents' (but not their own) depression. We conclude that child pupils are sensitive to individual differences in parents' pupils and emotional dispositions in community samples.

"Nobody Here Likes Her"-The Impact of Parental Verbal Threat Information on Children's Fear of Strangers.

Parental verbal threat (vs. safety) information about strangers may induce fears of these strangers in adolescents. In this multi-method experimental study, utilizing a within-subject design, parents provided standardized verbal threat or safety information to their offspring (N = 77, Mage = 11.62 years, 42 girls) regarding two strangers in the lab. We also explored whether the impact of parental verbal threat information differs depending on the social anxiety levels of parents or fearful temperaments of adolescents. Adolescent's fear of strangers during social interaction tasks was assessed using cognitive (fear beliefs, attention bias), behavioral (observed avoidance and anxiety), and physiological (heart rate) indices. We also explored whether the impact of parental verbal threat information differs depending on the social anxiety levels of parents or fearful temperaments of adolescents. The findings suggest that a single exposure to parental verbal threat (vs. safety) information increased adolescent's self-reported fears about the strangers but did not increase their fearful behaviors, heart rate, or attentional bias. Furthermore, adolescents of parents with higher social anxiety levels or adolescents with fearful temperaments were not more strongly impacted by parental verbal threat information. Longitudinal research and studies investigating parents' naturalistic verbal expressions of threat are needed to expand our understanding of this potential verbal fear-learning pathway.

"Covid-19 is dangerous": The role of parental verbal threat information on children's fear of Covid-19.

INTRODUCTION: Theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that the effect of parental verbal threat information on the offspring's fear acquisition of novel stimuli may be causal. The current study investigated this verbal fear acquisition pathway from parents to children in the unique context of Covid-19 as a novel environmental threat for parents and children. METHODS: Using an online cross-sectional survey, we collected data about fear of Covid-19, parent-child communication, parental anxiety, and child temperament, in the period between June 11th 2020 and May 28th 2021. Participants were 8 to 18-year-old children (N = 195; Mage = 14.23; 113 girls) and their parents (N = 193; Mage = 47.82; 146 mothers) living in the Netherlands. RESULTS: Children of parents with stronger Covid-19 fears also reported stronger Covid-19 fears. Moreover, parents who were more fearful of Covid-19 provided more threat-related information about the virus to their children. More parental threat information in turn was related to stronger fear of Covid-19 in their children, and partly mediated the link between parent and child fear of the virus. The link between parental threat information and children's fear of Covid-19 was not moderated by child temperament or parental anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: Parental communication about Covid-19 may play a role in children's fear acquisition of Covid-19. The lack of moderation of this link by parental anxiety and child temperament may reflect the potentially adaptive nature of verbal fear transmission during the first year of the pandemic and the nonclinical levels of fear in this community sample.

The social learning of threat and safety in the family: Parent-to-child transmission of social fears via verbal information.

Parental verbal threat (vs. safety) information regarding the social world may impact a child's fear responses, evident in subjective, behavioral, cognitive, and physiological indices of fear. In this study, primary caregivers provided standardized verbal threat or safety information to their child (N = 68, M = 5.27 years; 34 girls) regarding two strangers in the lab. Following this manipulation, children reported fear beliefs for each stranger. Physiological and behavioral reactions were recorded as children engaged with the two strangers (who were blind to their characterization) in a social interaction task. Child attention to the strangers was measured in a visual search task. Parents also reported their own, and their child's, social anxiety symptoms. Children reported more fear for the stranger paired with threat information, but no significant differences were found in observed child fear, attention, or heart rate. Higher social anxiety symptoms on the side of the parents and the children exacerbated the effect of parental verbal threat on observed fear. Our findings reveal a causal influence of parental verbal threat information only for child-reported fear and highlight the need to further refine the conditions under which acquired fear beliefs persist and generalize to behavior/physiology or get overruled by nonaversive real-life encounters.

Pupil responses to dynamic negative facial expressions of emotion in infants and parents.

Observing others' emotions triggers physiological arousal in infants as well as in adults, reflected in dilated pupil sizes. This study is the first to examine parents' and infants' pupil responses to dynamic negative emotional facial expressions. Moreover, the links between pupil responses and negative emotional dispositions were explored among infants and parents. Infants' and one of their parent's pupil responses to negative versus neutral faces were measured via eye tracking in 222 infants (5- to 7-month-olds, n = 77, 11- to 13-month-olds, n = 78, and 17- to 19-month-olds, n = 67) and 229 parents. One parent contributed to the pupil data, whereas both parents were invited to fill in questionnaires on their own and their infant's negative emotional dispositions. Infants did not differentially respond to negative expressions, while parents showed stronger pupil responses to negative versus neutral expressions. There was a positive association between infants' and their parent's mean pupil responses and significant links between mothers' and fathers' stress levels and their infants' pupil responses. We conclude that a direct association between pupil responses in parents and offspring is observable already in infancy in typical development. Stress in parents is related to their infants' pupillary arousal to negative emotions.

The relation between early behavioural inhibition and later social anxiety, independent of attentional biases to threat.

Early behavioural inhibition, a temperamental characteristic defined by fearful, overly-sensitive, avoidant, or withdrawn reactions to the unknown, is a predictor of later social anxiety. However, not all behaviourally inhibited children develop anxiety problems, and attentional bias to threat has been proposed to moderate the relation between behavioural inhibition and anxiety. The current study aimed to further specify the relation between early behavioural inhibition and later social anxiety by testing this potentially moderating role of childhood attentional bias to threat. Behavioural inhibition was assessed during toddlerhood (age 2.5 years) using laboratory observations of children's behaviours in response to unknown objects and situations. When children were 7.5 years old, attentional bias was measured in 86 children (46 girls) using both a visual probe task and a visual search task with angry and happy faces. Child social anxiety was measured using questionnaires completed by the child and both parents, and clinical interviews conducted with both parents. Our results showed that while early behavioural inhibition was related to later social anxiety, there was no evidence for a moderation of this relation by attentional bias, suggesting that the relation between early fearful temperament and later social anxiety holds across children, independent of their attentional biases.

Pupil mimicry in infants and parents.

Changes in pupil size can reflect social interest or affect, and tend to get mimicked by observers during eye contact. Pupil mimicry has recently been observed in young infants, whereas it is unknown whether the extent and the speed of infants' pupil mimicry response are identical to that of adults. Moreover, the question of whether pupil mimicry in infants is modulated by the race of the observed other remains to be explored. In two studies, pupil mimicry was investigated in infants and their parents. In the first study, 6-, 12- and 18-month-olds (n = 194) and their parents (n = 192) observed eyes with dynamically dilating, constricting, or static pupils. Infants mimicked the pupil sizes of the observed eyes like their parents, but responded slower. Study 2 replicated these findings in a new sample of infants (n = 55, 12-month-olds) and parents (n = 64), and further showed that the pupil mimicry response was not significantly modulated by the race of the observed partner neither in infants nor in parents. We conclude that pupil mimicry is an ancient bonding mechanism that helps to connect people.

Intergenerational transmission of attentional bias and anxiety.

Earlier evidence has revealed a bi-directional causal relationship between anxiety and attention biases in adults and children. This study investigated the prospective and concurrent relations between anxiety and attentional bias in a sample of 89 families (mothers, fathers, and first-born children). Parents' and children's attentional bias was measured when children were 7.5 years old, using both a visual probe task and visual search task with angry versus happy facial expressions. Generalized and social anxiety symptoms in parents and children were measured when children were 4.5 and 7.5 years old. Anxiety in parents and children was prospectively (but not concurrently) related to their respective attentional biases to threat: All participants showed a larger attentional bias to threat in the visual search (but not in the visual probe) task if they were more anxious at the 4.5 (but not at the 7.5) year measurement. Moreover, parents' anxiety levels were prospectively predictive of the visual search attentional bias of their children after controlling for child anxiety. More anxiety in mothers at 4.5 years was related to a faster detection of angry among happy faces, while more anxiety in fathers predicted a faster detection of happy among angry faces in children at 7.5 years. We found no direct association between parental and child attentional biases. Our study contributes to the recently emerging literature on attentional biases as a potential mechanism in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety by showing that parents' anxiety rather than parents' attentional bias contributes to the intergenerational transmission of risk for child anxiety.

Pre-verbal infants perceive emotional facial expressions categorically.

Adults perceive emotional expressions categorically, with discrimination being faster and more accurate between expressions from different emotion categories (i.e. blends with two different predominant emotions) than between two stimuli from the same category (i.e. blends with the same predominant emotion). The current study sought to test whether facial expressions of happiness and fear are perceived categorically by pre-verbal infants, using a new stimulus set that was shown to yield categorical perception in adult observers (Experiments 1 and 2). These stimuli were then used with 7-month-old infants (N = 34) using a habituation and visual preference paradigm (Experiment 3). Infants were first habituated to an expression of one emotion, then presented with the same expression paired with a novel expression either from the same emotion category or from a different emotion category. After habituation to fear, infants displayed a novelty preference for pairs of between-category expressions, but not within-category ones, showing categorical perception. However, infants showed no novelty preference when they were habituated to happiness. Our findings provide evidence for categorical perception of emotional expressions in pre-verbal infants, while the asymmetrical effect challenges the notion of a bias towards negative information in this age group.

Bumping heart and sweaty palms: physiological hyperarousal as a risk factor for child social anxiety.

BACKGROUND: Physiological hyperarousal in social situations is a characteristic of individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD), but so far it has been rarely studied as a biological risk for SAD. Here, we investigate whether children at high risk for SAD (because of their parents' SAD) display physiological hyperarousal while interacting with a stranger. Also, we examine whether early physiological hyperarousal is related to later child social anxiety. METHOD: One hundred and seventeen children took part in the stranger-approach task when they were 2.5 and 4.5 years old. Heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), and electrodermal activity (EDA) were measured before, during, and after the conversation with a stranger. Both parents' lifetime SAD status and SAD severity were assessed before the birth of the child. Both parents and children reported on children's social anxiety symptoms when children were 7.5. RESULTS: Children of parents with the lifetime SAD diagnosis did not differ in their physiological activity from children of parents without lifetime SAD. However, children of parents with more severe SAD displayed heightened EDA throughout the task procedure. Increased HR and reduced HRV during the stranger-approach and elevated EDA throughout the task phases were linked to later child social anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: Parents' severity of SAD is related to child physiological hyperarousal early in their childhood. In addition, physiological hyperarousal in early childhood predicts later child social anxiety. Together, these findings suggest that early physiological hyperarousal in social situations may pose a risk for later child social anxiety and that physiological hyperarousal, and EDA in particular, may be a biological mechanism in the intergenerational transmission of SAD.

Parental Expressions of Anxiety and Child Temperament in Toddlerhood Jointly Predict Preschoolers' Avoidance of Novelty.

This study investigated the link between (a) parents' social trait and state anxiety and (b) children's fear and avoidance in social referencing situations in a longitudinal design and considered the modulating role of child temperament in these links. Children were confronted with a stranger and a robot, separately with their father and mother at 1 (N = 122), at 2.5 (N = 117), and at 4.5 (N = 111) years of age. Behavioral inhibition (BI) was separately observed at 1 and 2.5 years. Parents' social anxiety disorder (SAD) severity was assessed via interviews prenatally and at 4.5 years. More expressed anxiety by parents at 4.5 years was not significantly linked to more fear or avoidance at 4.5 years. High BI children were more avoidant at 4.5 years if their parents expressed more anxiety at 2.5 years, and they were more fearful if the parents had more severe forms of lifetime SAD. More severe lifetime forms of SAD were also related to more pronounced increases in child fear and avoidance over time, whereas parents' expressions of anxiety predicted more pronounced increases in avoidance only from 2.5 to 4.5 years. High BI toddlers of parents with higher state and trait anxiety become more avoidant of novelty as preschoolers, illustrating the importance of considering child temperamental dispositions in the links between child and parent anxiety. Moreover, children of parents with more trait and state anxiety showed more pronounced increases in fear and avoidance over time, highlighting the importance of early interventions targeting parents' SAD.

How do parents' depression and anxiety, and infants' negative temperament relate to parent-infant face-to-face interactions?

The present study investigated the associations of mothers' and fathers' lifetime depression and anxiety symptoms, and of infants' negative temperament with parents' and infants' gaze, facial expressions of emotion, and synchrony. We observed infants' (age between 3.5 and 5.5 months, N = 101) and parents' gaze and facial expressions during 4-min naturalistic face-to-face interactions. Parents' lifetime symptoms of depression and anxiety were assessed with clinical interviews, and infants' negative temperament was measured with standardized observations. Parents with more depressive symptoms and their infants expressed less positive and more neutral affect. Parents' lifetime anxiety symptoms were not significantly related to parents' expressions of affect, while they were linked to longer durations of gaze to parent, and to more positive and negative affect in infants. Parents' lifetime depression or anxiety was not related to synchrony. Infants' temperament did not predict infants' or parents' interactive behavior. The study reveals that more depression symptoms in parents are linked to more neutral affect from parents and from infants during face-to-face interactions, while parents' anxiety symptoms are related to more attention to parent and less neutral affect from infants (but not from parents).

Parental social anxiety disorder prospectively predicts toddlers' fear/avoidance in a social referencing paradigm.

BACKGROUND: Anxiety runs in families. Observational learning of anxious behavior from parents with anxiety disorders plays an important role in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety. We investigated the link between parental anxiety (parental lifetime anxiety disorders and expressed parental anxiety) and toddler fear/avoidance during social referencing (SR) situations. METHOD: Toddlers (N = 117) participated with both parents (with lifetime social anxiety disorder, other nonsocial anxiety disorders, lifetime comorbid social and other anxiety disorders, or without anxiety disorders) in a longitudinal study. Behavioral inhibition (BI) was measured at 12 months via observational tasks. At 30 months, children were confronted with a stranger and a remote-control robot in SR situations, separately with each parent. Children's fear and avoidance, and parents' expressions of anxiety, encouragement, and overcontrol were observed. RESULTS: Toddlers of parents with lifetime social anxiety disorder (alone and comorbid with other anxiety disorders) showed more fear/avoidance in SR situations than toddlers of parents without anxiety disorders, while the effect of other anxiety disorders alone was not significant. Although expressed parental anxiety at 30 months in SR situations did not significantly predict toddlers' fear/avoidance, higher levels of expressed anxiety at 12 months in SR situations by parents with comorbid social and other anxiety disorders predicted higher levels of fear/avoidance. BI at 12 months predicted toddlers' fear/avoidance only with mothers, but not with fathers. CONCLUSIONS: Parental lifetime social anxiety disorders may be a stronger predictor of children's fear/avoidance than parents' expressions of anxiety in SR situations in toddlerhood. End of infancy may be a sensitive time for learning of anxiety from parents with comorbid lifetime social and nonsocial anxiety disorders in SR situations. Fathers are as important as mothers in the transmission of anxiety via SR. Furthermore, children may act relatively free of their early temperament in SR situations with fathers.

The Role of Parental Verbal Threat Information in Children's Fear Acquisition: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Children can acquire fears of novel stimuli as a result of listening to parental verbal threat information about these stimuli (i.e., instructional learning). While empirical studies have shown that learning via parental information occurs, the effect size of parental verbal threat information on child fear of a novel stimulus has not yet been measured in a meta-analysis. We conducted a systematic review and meta analysis to assess the effect of parents' verbal statements on their children's fear acquisition. Additionally, we explored potential moderators of this effect, namely, parent and child anxiety levels, as well as child age. WebOfScience, Pubmed, Medline, and PsycINFO were used to identify eligible studies that assessed children's (30 months to 18 years old) fear of novel stimuli after being exposed to parental verbal threat information. We selected 17 studies for the meta-analysis and 18 for the systematic review. The meta-analysis revealed a significant causal effect of parental verbal threat information on children's fear reaction towards novel stimuli [g = 1.26]. No evidence was found for a moderation of verbal learning effects, neither by child or parent anxiety levels nor by child age. The effect of parents' verbal threat information on children's fear of novel stimuli is large and not dependent on anxiety levels or child age.

The interplay between expressed parental anxiety and infant behavioural inhibition predicts infant avoidance in a social referencing paradigm.

BACKGROUND: Anxiety aggregates in families. Environmental factors, such as modelling of anxious behaviours, are assumed to play a causal role in the development of child anxiety. We investigated the predictive value of paternal and maternal anxiety (lifetime anxiety disorders and expressed parental anxiety) on infants' fear and avoidance during encounters with social and nonsocial novel stimuli in a social referencing (SR) paradigm. METHODS: A total of 122 12-month-old infants participated in this study separately with their fathers and mothers (parents with lifetime: social anxiety disorders [n=47], other types of anxiety disorders [n=33], comorbid social and other types of anxiety disorders [n=52] and without anxiety disorders [n=112]). Infants were confronted with a stranger and a mechanical dinosaur as novel stimuli in two SR situations. Infants' avoidance as well as fear and parents' expressed anxiety were observed. Infants' behavioural inhibition (BI) was separately observed in structured tasks. RESULTS: Parental lifetime anxiety disorders did not significantly predict infant fear or avoidance. Expressed parental anxiety interacted with BI to significantly predict infant avoidance, revealing a positive association between expressed parental anxiety and infant avoidance among infants with moderate-to-high BI. The association between infant avoidance and expressed parental anxiety was not significantly different for mothers and fathers, pointing to an equally important role of fathers at this young age. Infant fear was significantly predicted by infant BI, but not by expressed parental anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: Infants with a temperamental disposition for anxiety (BI) may learn from both paternal and maternal anxious signals and become avoidant towards novelty when their parents express anxiety. This link between expressed parental anxiety and infant avoidance for moderate-to-high BI children, that seems to hold across contexts and to be independent of lifetime parental anxiety disorders, may be a mechanism explaining early intergenerational transmission of anxiety.

Parent to Offspring Fear Transmission via Modeling in Early Life: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Infants can acquire fears vicariously by observing parents' fearful reactions to novel stimuli in everyday situations (i.e., modeling). To date, no systematic or meta-analytic review examined the role of modeling in parent-child transmission of fear and avoidance in early life. In our systematic review and meta-analysis, we aimed to investigate the effect of modeling parents' fearful reactions on infants' acquisition of fear and avoidance of novel stimuli and explore the moderation of this effect by child behavioral inhibition (BI) and parent trait anxiety. The search conducted in Web Of Science, Pubmed, Embase, and PsycINFO revealed 23 eligible studies for the systematic review and 19 for the meta-analysis. Eligible studies included published studies that measured infant fear and avoidance (infants aged up to 30 months) of novel stimuli following exposure to parental fearful expressions. Meta-analysis findings revealed a significant causal effect of modeling of parental fear on infants' fear [g = .44] and avoidance of novel stimuli [g = .44]. The findings support moderation by child BI on infant avoidance (not fear) acquisition, with the effects being larger for infants with higher BI. However, this moderation was only found, when including both experimental and correlational studies (p > .05), but not when exclusively including experimental studies (p = .17). This meta-analysis provides support for early parent-to-offspring fear transmission: a causal small to medium effect of parents' fearful reactions was shown on infants' fear and avoidance of novel stimuli. Elucidating parent-to-offspring anxiety transmission pathways can inform us about potential fear reduction and prevention strategies.

Intergenerational Transmission of Anxious Information Processing Biases: An Updated Conceptual Model.

Anxiety disorders are globally one of the most prevalent and disabling forms of psychopathology in adults and children. Having a parent with an anxiety disorder multiplies the risk of anxiety disorders in the offspring, although the specific mechanisms and processes that play a role in this intergenerational transmission remain largely unknown. According to information processing theories, threat-related biases in cognitive processing are a causal mechanism in the development and maintenance of anxiety. These theories propose that individuals with anxiety are more likely to cognitively process novel stimuli in their environment as threatening. Creswell and colleagues proposed a theoretical model that highlighted the role of these cognitive biases as a mechanism in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety (Creswell et al., in Hadwin, Field (eds) Information processing biases and anxiety: a developmental perspective, Wiley, pp 279-295, 2010). This model postulated significant associations between (1) parents' and children's threat-related cognitive biases (2) parents' threat-related cognitive biases in their own and their child's environment, (3) parents' threat-related cognitive biases and parenting behaviors that convey anxiety risk to the offspring (e.g., modeling of fear, and verbal threat information transmission), and (4) parenting behaviors and child threat-related biases. This theoretical review collated the recent empirical work testing these four core hypotheses of the model. Building on the reviewed empirical work, an updated conceptual model focusing on threat-related attention and interpretation is proposed. This updated model incorporates the links between cognition and anxiety in parents and children and addresses the potential bidirectional nature of parent-child influences.

Attention Biases to Threat in Infants and Parents: Links to Parental and Infant Anxiety Dispositions.

Parent-to-child transmission of information processing biases to threat is a potential causal mechanism in the family aggregation of anxiety symptoms and traits. This study is the first to investigate the link between infants' and parents' attention bias to dynamic threat-relevant (versus happy) emotional expressions. Moreover, the associations between infant attention and anxiety dispositions in infants and parents were explored. Using a cross-sectional design, we tested 211 infants in three age groups: 5-to-7-month-olds (n = 71), 11-to-13-month-olds (n = 73), and 17-to-19-month-olds (n = 67), and 216 parents (153 mothers). Infant and parental dwell times to angry and fearful versus happy facial expressions were measured via eye-tracking. The parents also reported on their anxiety and stress. Ratings of infant temperamental fear and distress were averaged across both parents. Parents and infants tended to show an attention bias for fearful faces with marginally longer dwell times to fearful versus happy faces. Parents dwelled longer on angry versus happy faces, whereas infants showed an avoidant pattern with longer dwell times to happy versus angry expressions. There was a significant positive association between infant and parent attention to emotional expressions. Parental anxiety dispositions were not related to their own or their infant's attention bias. No significant link emerged between infants' temperament and attention bias. We conclude that an association between parental and infant attention may already be evident in the early years of life, whereas a link between anxiety dispositions and attention biases may not hold in community samples.

Infant Emotional Mimicry of Strangers: Associations with Parent Emotional Mimicry, Parent-Infant Mutual Attention, and Parent Dispositional Affective Empathy.

Emotional mimicry, the tendency to automatically and spontaneously reproduce others' facial expressions, characterizes human social interactions from infancy onwards. Yet, little is known about the factors modulating its development in the first year of life. This study investigated infant emotional mimicry and its association with parent emotional mimicry, parent-infant mutual attention, and parent dispositional affective empathy. One hundred and seventeen parent-infant dyads (51 six-month-olds, 66 twelve-month-olds) were observed during video presentation of strangers' happy, sad, angry, and fearful faces. Infant and parent emotional mimicry (i.e., facial expressions valence-congruent to the video) and their mutual attention (i.e., simultaneous gaze at one another) were systematically coded second-by-second. Parent empathy was assessed via self-report. Path models indicated that infant mimicry of happy stimuli was positively and independently associated with parent mimicry and affective empathy, while infant mimicry of sad stimuli was related to longer parent-infant mutual attention. Findings provide new insights into infants' and parents' coordination of mimicry and attention during triadic contexts of interactions, endorsing the social-affiliative function of mimicry already present in infancy: emotional mimicry occurs as an automatic parent-infant shared behavior and early manifestation of empathy only when strangers' emotional displays are positive, and thus perceived as affiliative.

Evaluating Mindful With Your Baby/Toddler: Observational Changes in Maternal Sensitivity, Acceptance, Mind-Mindedness, and Dyadic Synchrony.

Studies on the effectiveness of mindful parenting interventions predominantly focused on self-report measures of parenting, whereas observational assessments of change are lacking. The present study examined whether the Mindful with your baby/toddler training leads to observed changes in maternal behavior and mother-child interaction quality. Mindful with your baby/toddler is a 8- or 9-week mindful parenting training for clinically referred mothers of young children (aged 0-48 months), who experience parental stress, mother-child interaction problems, and/or whose children experience regulation problems. The study involved a quasi-experimental non-random design including a sample of 50 mothers who were diagnosed with a mood disorder (n = 21, 42%), an anxiety disorder (n = 7, 14%), post-traumatic stress disorder (n = 6, 12%), or other disorder (n = 7, 14%). Mothers completed a parental stress questionnaire and participated in home observations with their babies (n = 36) or toddlers (n = 14) during a waitlist, pretest, and posttest assessment. Maternal sensitivity, acceptance, and mind-mindedness were coded from free-play interactions and dyadic synchrony was coded from face-to-face interactions. Sensitivity and acceptance were coded with the Ainsworth's maternal sensitivity scales. Mind-mindedness was assessed by calculating frequency and proportions of appropriate and nonattuned mind-related comments. Dyadic synchrony was operationalized by co-occurrences of gazes and positive facial expressions and maternal and child responsiveness in vocal interaction within the dyad. Coders were blind to the measurement moment. From waitlist to pretest, no significant improvements were observed. At posttest, mothers reported less parenting stress, and were observed to show more accepting behavior and make less nonattuned comments than at pretest, and children showed higher levels of responsiveness. The outcomes suggest that the Mindful with your baby/toddler training affects not only maternal stress, but also maternal behavior, particularly (over)reactive parenting behaviors, which resulted in more acceptance, better attunement to child's mental world, and more "space" for children to respond to their mothers during interactions. Mindful with your baby/toddler may be a suitable intervention for mothers of young children with (a combination of) maternal psychopathology, parental stress, and problems in the parent-child interaction and child regulation problems.