Is helicopter parenting related to college students’ mental health? A typological and cross‐cultural approach

Abstract

ObjectiveThe 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).BackgroundPrevious 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.MethodWe 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.ResultsWe 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.ConclusionOur 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.ImplicationsThe 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.

Is medical training solely to blame? Generational influences on the mental health of our medical trainees

“…Our study showed low mean scores of helicopter parenting style among our sample, and a lack of association with the medical trainees’ mental health outcomes. This might be related to cultural context, however, literature shows larger detrimental effects of helicopter parenting in collectivist cultures than in individualistic cultures [ 66 , 67 ]. In collectivist cultures, like the context of our study, university students do not work and depend on their parents financially during their university education.…”