The association between parental internalizing disorders and child school performance

Parents play a crucial role in children’s lives. Despite high prevalences of anxiety and depression, we do not know how these disorders among parents associate with child school performance in Norway. We use regression models to estimate associations between parental mental disorders and child school performance, while adjusting for some social and genetic confounders. Parental anxiety and depression were assessed from administrative registers of government funded health service consultations for all individuals in Norway with children born between 1992 and 2002. School performance was assessed as standardized grade point average at the end of compulsory education when children are 16 years old. Associations were also considered in samples of adoptees and among differentially affected siblings. We find that 18.8% of children have a parent with an anxiety or depression diagnosis from primary care during the last three years of compulsory education (yearly prevalence: 11.5%). There is a negative association between these parental mental disorders and child school outcomes (z = 0.43). This association was weakened, but statistically significant among differentially exposed siblings (z = 0.04), while disappearing in adoptee children. Many children experience that their parents have anxiety or depression and receive a diagnosis from primary care. On average, these children have lower school performance. The association is attenuated when comparing differentially exposed siblings and disappears in adoptee children. These results have a poor fit with the hypothesis that parental internalizing is an influential causal factor in determining children’s educational success.