Perhaps it is not surprising that mothers challenging parenting behaviour was found to relate to child anxiety; mothers typically spend more time with their children than fathers, especially at this younger age (for a review, see Möller et al. (2013)). Consequently, this may provide ample time for this parenting behaviour to affect child anxiety. Nevertheless, findings of this association for both caregivers lends support to the argument that parental engagement in challenging parenting behaviour, including rough-and-tumble play, encouraging children to step out of their comfort zone and take risks, presents an important parenting domain warranting further investigation.