Parents' genetic traits can indirectly influence a child's risk of anxiety and depression by shaping the child's family environment.

Is it true that Parents' genetic traits can indirectly influence a child's risk of anxiety and depression by shaping the child's family environment?

Partly. Two Norwegian cohort studies report that parental genetic nurture and parental education are associated with children's anxiety and depression symptoms, and a methods paper describes the indirect parental-genome pathway generally. However, a sibling study of refractive error found no genetic nurture contribution, and no item settles the claim for anxiety and depression beyond those single-cohort, age-8 findings.

Verdict: CONTESTED PARTIAL · 3 sources for, 1 against · Last checked 3 Oct 2026

The private library was unavailable for some searches in this check. Missing library results are not evidence against the claim.

Cheesman, R., Eilertsen, E. M., Ahmadzadeh, Y. I., Gjerde, L. C., Hannigan, L. J., & Havdahl, A. (2020). How important are parents in the development of child anxiety and depression? A genomic analysis of parent-offspring trios in the Norwegian Mother Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). doi.org. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-020-01760-1

Assessing the contribution of genetic nurture to refractive error. (n.d.). cir.nii.ac.jp. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41431-022-01126-6

Hughes, A. M., Torvik, F. A., Bergen, E. v., Hannigan, L. J., Corfield, E. C., & Andreassen, O. A. (2024). Parental Education and Children's Depression, Anxiety, and ADHD Traits, a Within-Family Study in MoBa. eric.ed.gov. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-024-00260-8

Estimating genetic nurture with summary statistics of multigenerational genome-wide association studies. (n.d.). cir.nii.ac.jp. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2023184118