For anyone who is a mother, there’s no surprise here: when children and mothers filled out questionnaires regarding allergy symptoms in the child, the mothers’ questionnaires listed significantly more symptoms (or episodes) than their children’s reports.

A study published in the Journal of Allergy And Clinical Immunology in December 2009 looked at data on just over 140 mothers of children between 2 and 17 who had food allergies. Children over 8 completed self reports of symptoms and attitudes toward allergy, including anxiety and depressive indicators as well as social stress.

The combination of mothers’ anxiety and children’s attitudes towards food allergy was associated with distress for children 8 and over; the more their mothers fretted and their attitudes were negative, the more likely they had stress.

Source: PubMed.gov