Selective mutism is an anxiety disorder in which a child fails to speak in particular social or unfamiliar settings, most commonly at school or in public, despite producing fluent speech at home. Estimates suggest the condition affects at least 0.2 to 2 percent of the population, and documented prevalence continues to rise as awareness and assessment improve. The consequences are far from trivial. Children with selective mutism show impairments in academic achievement, social interaction, and general functioning wherever speaking is demanded of them, along with elevated rates of comorbid psychiatric conditions, most often social anxiety disorder. Long-term follow-up studies indicate that untreated selective mutism can predict persistent social skills deficits, educational and occupational difficulties, and low self-esteem well into adolescence and adulthood. Despite this burden, research into the family dynamics that sustain the disorder has lagged behind work on other childhood anxiety conditions, and the study’s authors argue that a missing measurement tool is a central reason why.

Family accommodation was first described in the context of pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder in the mid-1990s, where clinicians noticed that relatives often participated in a child’s rituals or modified their own routines to reduce the child’s distress. The concept has since expanded across the full spectrum of childhood anxiety. Research indicates that as many as 88 to 97 percent of caregivers of anxious children engage in at least some accommodating behavior. In the short term, accommodation works: the child’s distress drops, the household regains calm. But that relief operates as negative reinforcement, teaching both child and parent that avoidance is the solution. Over time, the child is deprived of opportunities to develop independent mastery and self-efficacy, to learn through experience that feared outcomes rarely materialize. A meta-analysis by Iniesta-Sepúlveda and colleagues found that accommodation tracks anxiety severity across development, and that age does not meaningfully moderate the link, meaning these dynamics matter as much for adolescents as for preschoolers.

The problem, the researchers explain, is that generic accommodation measures may systematically miss the accommodations that define selective mutism. Established instruments such as the Family Accommodation Scale–Anxiety, the Pediatric Accommodation Scale, and the Family Accommodation Checklist and Interference Scale ask parents broad questions about modifying routines, facilitating avoidance, or providing reassurance. None specify anything about verbal contexts. A parent who speaks for their child dozens of times a day may not conceptualize that behavior as accommodation at all, and will therefore score low on a generic scale even while carrying out a textbook avoidance-enabling behavior dozens of times each week. Only three prior studies had examined accommodation in selective mutism, with mixed findings: two found significant associations with symptom severity, one did not. The inconsistency, the team hypothesized, might be an artifact of the instruments themselves.

To build a better tool, Kamenetskiy, Furr, Herrera, and their collaborators generated an initial pool of 21 items organized into four conceptually distinct sections, drawing on their own clinical expertise and consultation with ten therapists who carry heavy caseloads of selective mutism cases. The first three sections probe how often caregivers speak or answer for their child (surrogate speaking), allow whispered communication, and permit purely nonverbal communication such as nodding or pointing. Crucially, each of these sections asks about five specific situations: interactions with familiar adults, strangers, familiar peers, unfamiliar peers, and ordering at a restaurant, a structure that mirrors functional assessment tools used in the field. The fourth section covers instrumental accommodation, meaning active efforts to restructure situations that demand speech, such as persuading a teacher to excuse the child from a class presentation or accompanying the child on field trips in case speaking is required. Each item is rated from zero (never) to five (always), and a Spanish version was subjected to rigorous translation and back-translation.

The sample was unusually well suited to the question: 412 treatment-seeking anxious youth aged 2 to 18 and their caregivers, recruited from two university-affiliated specialty anxiety clinics, the Mental health Interventions and Novel Therapeutics Program at Florida International University and the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University. Slightly more than half of the children, 217 of them, met diagnostic criteria for selective mutism, a far higher proportion than in typical anxiety samples. Diagnoses were established with the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children and Parents, administered by trained assessors with documented interrater reliability exceeding a kappa of 0.80. Roughly half the sample was Hispanic and/or Latinx, and families could complete questionnaires in English or Spanish, an important consideration given the elevated prevalence concerns for selective mutism in multilingual communities.

The psychometric analysis relied on confirmatory factor analysis using polychoric correlation matrices and weighted least squares estimation, appropriate for the ordinal rating-scale data, with maximum likelihood estimation run in parallel as a robustness check. Four theoretically derived models competed. A single-factor model including all 21 items fit poorly, as did four-factor models retaining all items or excluding items about familiar adults. The winning model dropped the three items concerning interactions with familiar peers, yielding an 18-item, four-factor structure corresponding to the subscales of Surrogate Speaking, Permitting of Whispered Communication, Permitting of Nonverbal Communication, and Instrumental Accommodation, with all fit indices landing in the good range. Internal consistency was excellent, with Cronbach’s alpha of 0.94 for the total score and between 0.86 and 0.94 for the subscales, alongside a Spearman-Brown split-half reliability of 0.84 and an average inter-item correlation of 0.42.

The clinical findings were striking. Nearly everyone accommodates: 96.1 percent of caregivers reported engaging in at least one of the assessed behaviors when their child’s speech was expected. The single most common accommodation was speaking for one’s child with strangers, reported at least sometimes by 75 percent of the full sample, and by 87.6 percent of parents of children with selective mutism, 73.3 percent of whom did so often or always. After statistically controlling for child age and the number of anxiety diagnoses, caregivers of children with selective mutism scored significantly higher than other anxious families on the SAVE total and on every one of the four subscales, results that survived Holm-Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Convergent validity was supported by significant correlations with general accommodation measures, selective mutism symptoms on the Selective Mutism Questionnaire, and internalizing problems on the Child Behavior Checklist, while associations with externalizing problems were weak and non-significant when internalizing symptoms were modeled simultaneously, evidence of divergent validity.

Perhaps most importantly, the SAVE demonstrated incremental validity. In three hierarchical regression models, general family accommodation measured by the FASA or the FACLIS predicted selective mutism severity on its own, but once the SAVE entered the equation, its contributions shrank to negligible levels while the SAVE accounted for large additional portions of variance. In other words, the SAVE captures something that established instruments miss: the subtle rescue behaviors embedded in everyday verbal encounters. Notably, familiar peers dropped out of the final factor structure entirely, which the authors interpret intriguingly. Children with selective mutism often have a trusted friend or two with whom they speak, and those friends sometimes end up speaking for the child at school. Familiar peers, the authors suggest, may function less as triggers for parental accommodation and more as agents of accommodation themselves, a dynamic that deserves its own line of research.

The authors are careful to note limitations. The SAVE relies on a single caregiver’s self-report, mostly mothers, and does not yet assess the distress or interference that accommodation causes, nor was it compared against the Pediatric Accommodation Scale. The cross-sectional design precludes conclusions about temporal precedence or causality, and the sample skewed toward White, middle-to-high socioeconomic status, treatment-seeking families. Still, the implications are substantial. Prior work in pediatric OCD and anxiety has shown that reductions in accommodation can drive downstream improvements in child symptoms, and the SAVE now gives researchers a tool to test whether the same mechanism operates in selective mutism treatment, potentially clarifying the active ingredients of family-based interventions adapted from Parent-Child Interaction Therapy and intensive group behavioral treatment. For clinicians, the measure offers a way to individualize case conceptualization, set concrete treatment targets, and track family change over time. For parents, the message embedded in the data is gently sobering: answering for a quiet child at the counter may ease the moment, but the evidence suggests that the road out of silence runs through the very encounters families have learned to bypass.

Led by Princeton Chee, the research distinguishes itself by focusing explicitly on the rare emotional states of pride and awe during parent-child interactions. Although pride is often understood as a common emotional response tied closely to achievements and personal validation, awe is a less explored but remarkably impactful emotion. Awe, according to the investigation, encompasses powerful feelings elicited by encounters with something greater than oneself—moments when parents are struck by the extraordinary qualities or achievements of their children, triggering a sense of wonder and expansive self-transcendence. Through a series of experimental studies, the research underscores that while both pride and awe are integral to enhancing well-being, awe exerts a more robust and holistic influence on parental happiness, meaning, and psychosocial richness.

The research methodology employed integrates sophisticated psychological measures designed to capture facets of well-being that extend beyond traditional happiness metrics. By using validated scales assessing life satisfaction, purpose, and psychological richness, the study quantifies how awe enhances a parent’s perception of their role and experience. Remarkably, awe was found to facilitate parents’ connection to a broader existential framework, linking them not only to their children but also to the overarching concept of parenthood itself. This broader perspective fosters a sense of meaning and psychological depth, which pride, more narrowly focused on individual accomplishment and ego reinforcement, does not fully engender.

One of the most intriguing revelations from the study is awe’s capacity to alter parents’ subjective temporal experience. When experiencing awe, parents report a slowing down of time, allowing them to immerse fully in extraordinary moments. This temporal dilation provides a psychological buffer against the usual pace of daily stressors and obligations, creating space for savoring and memory consolidation. Chee highlights this phenomenon as a critical psychological mechanism through which awe amplifies well-being, making moments with one’s child not just enjoyable but fundamentally transformative.

The research is particularly poignant in the context of mounting concerns over parental mental health globally. With increasing pressures and the well-documented rise in parental stress and anxiety, these findings offer an optimistic pathway. Chee emphasizes that nurturing feelings of pride and, especially, awe can provide a vital counterbalance to the strains of parenting, promoting resilience and positive psychological outcomes. This pivot from a deficit-based view, where parenthood is seen predominantly as challenging and taxing, towards one that values the unique emotional rewards inherent in the parental role, marks a significant paradigm shift in psychological science and public discourse.

Contrary to popular assumptions that awe requires rare or spectacular events, the study intriguingly suggests that awe can be cultivated through routine and accessible parenting experiences. Simple activities such as weekend outings, quality time spent in attentive interaction, or observing a child’s spontaneous display of talent or kindness can evoke these powerful emotional responses. This insight democratizes the experience of awe, making it a practical tool for parents seeking to enhance their well-being through deliberate engagement with their children’s daily lives.

The implications for future interventions and support programs are profound. By prioritizing emotional cultivation, particularly awe, parental support systems can shift from focusing solely on alleviating stress to fostering meaningful emotional experiences that enrich parents’ lives. This approach dovetails with emerging psychological models emphasizing the importance of meaning and psychological richness over mere happiness or the absence of distress. Encouragingly, these findings suggest that such positive emotional experiences are not mutually exclusive with the inevitable challenges of parenting but can coexist and even mitigate the negative impacts.

Methodologically, the research leverages an experimental design to parse out the causal influence of pride and awe on well-being. This design strengthens confidence in the findings, as opposed to correlational studies that can only suggest associations. The large sample size of nearly 900 parents provides a robust data set, enhancing the generalizability of the conclusions to diverse parenting populations. Importantly, the study considers demographic variables to ensure that these emotional effects are consistent across different parent subgroups, adding to the depth and applicability of the results.

Within the broader scientific landscape, this work enriches ongoing discourse about the emotional complexity of human experiences and the role of positive emotions in psychological health. It builds upon established theories of self-transcendence and positive affect, situating parental awe within a framework that recognizes the interplay between individual emotions and broader social and existential constructs. The nuanced differentiation between pride as ego-centric and awe as self-transcendent provides valuable insights for psychological theorists and practitioners alike, offering new avenues for targeted emotional interventions.

Beyond the scientific realm, the study carries significant cultural resonance. In societies where parental achievement is often narrowly defined through child success and milestones, redefining emotional rewards to include awe encourages a more holistic appreciation of parenthood. It invites parents to attune to moments of wonder and connection that might otherwise be overlooked amidst the busyness and pressures inherent in child-rearing. This reframing not only benefits psychological well-being but may also transform public narratives around parenthood, fostering communities that value emotional richness as central to family life.

Finally, Princeton Chee’s research underscores a hopeful vision for the future of parenthood, advocating for a balanced embrace of both the challenges and extraordinary emotional rewards. By acknowledging that pride and awe can coexist with hardship, the findings paint a realistic yet optimistic picture of parenting as a source of profound fulfillment and personal growth. This perspective offers vital encouragement to parents worldwide, suggesting that even in the face of adversity, the path to well-being may be found through moments of emotional connection and reverence with their children.

Subject of Research: People

Article Title: Feeling Pride and Awe in Parenthood: The Unique Emotional Rewards of Parenting on Well-Being

News Publication Date: 21-Apr-2025

Web References: 10.1177/19485506251332690

Keywords: Parental well-being, pride, awe, parent-child relationship, psychological richness, life satisfaction, positive emotions, mental health, self-transcendence