Shayne Jacopian for redOrbit.com – @ShayneJacopian
According to a new study by Brigham Young University, published in Emerging Adulthood, “Helicopter parents,” those who make important decisions for their children and try to solve their problems and conflicts for them even into young adulthood, can’t make up for the negative affects of such parenting with love, support, and overall parental warmth.
You mean the motive doesn’t make any difference to the outcome of the action?
“From our past work, we thought there might be something positive about helicopter parenting under certain conditions, but we’re just not finding it,” said study author Larry Nelson. Nelson’s work was a follow-up to 2012 research that found children of helicopter parents to be less engaged in school, in addition to having a lower self-worth and being more likely to engage in risky behavior.
Surveying 438 undergraduate students from four different American universities, students reported on their parents’ controlling behavior, warmth, and affection—the researchers defined “warm” parents as ones who made themselves available to talk and spend time with their child—and on their own perceptions of self-worth, as well as their risky behavior and their academic lives.
The results showed that while kinder helicopter parents caused less negative effects than unkind ones, the difference was only slight.
“Overall, stepping in and doing for a child what the child developmentally should be doing for him or herself, is negative,” Nelson said in a release. “Regardless of the form of control, it’s harmful at this time period.”
Everyone has to learn to fend for themselves at some point, and helicopter parenting deprives children and young adults of these learning opportunities. Regardless of why they do it, helicopter parents need to learn to let their children have important learning experiences, even if it means they have to make mistakes along the way.
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