Is helicopter parenting related to college students’ mental health? A typological and cross-cultural approach
Author note: All of the authors listed in the byline have agreed to the byline order. The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Abstract
Objective
The goal of this study is to uncover latent classes of maternal and paternal helicopter parenting among American and Chinese college students, and to examine whether latent classes of maternal and paternal helicopter parenting are related to college students’ mental health (depression and self-esteem).
Background
Previous studies have examined the association between helicopter parenting and college students’ well-being. However, less is known about how the multidimensional construct of helicopter parenting is related to college students’ mental health across Western and Eastern cultural contexts.
Method
We conducted three-step latent class analyses using nine helicopter parenting indicators for 1,386 mother–child and 1,214 father–child groups in the United States and 520 mother–child and 454 father–child groups in China. Next, we tested the association between the class membership of maternal and paternal helicopter parenting and college students’ mental health.
Results
We identified distinct helicopter parenting latent classes among four American and Chinese parent–child groups. We also found that American college students in the strong maternal helicopter parenting latent class reported poorer mental health than those in other latent classes.
Conclusion
Our findings indicate that the multidimensional construct of helicopter parenting can be interpreted differently by parents and college-aged children according to their social and cultural contexts.
Implications
The findings of this study suggest that it is necessary to strengthen understanding of the multidimensional construct of helicopter parenting for parents with college-aged children to enable them to develop more appropriate parenting practices as well as support their children's well-being.
