Why Accommodation Matters

This chapter reviews the negative outcomes of parental accommodation of childhood anxiety. Family accommodation is associated with more severe child anxiety symptoms over time, greater functional impairment, and high levels of distress for the parents and family. The chapter lays out a theoretical model for the negative cycle of family accommodation and anxiety. The “accommodation trap” ensnares parents and children in an ongoing cycle in which parents accommodate to reduce child anxiety but the accommodation actually leads to more child anxiety, and to even more accommodation. The chapter also discusses some of the ways that accommodation maintains childhood anxiety including through promoting avoidant behavior in the child, reducing insight, and lowering the child’s motivation for treatment.