Semester

Fall

Date of Graduation

2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Amy Gentzler

Committee Co-Chair

Christina Duncan

Committee Member

JoNell Strough

Abstract

Research is replete with studies on Helicopter Parenting (HP) and its association with depression and anxiety (Cui et al., 2019; Schiffrin et al., 2014; 2019). However, most of the studies have focused on college students’ reports on helicopter parenting and there is relative dearth of studies with adolescents or with parents’ reports of HP (Pistella et al., 2020; Schiffrin et al., 2019). The current study aims to fill the gap in the literature by including both parent and adolescents’ perspectives on helicopter parenting, assess its unique association (parent and teens HP reports) with teen depression and anxiety both concurrently and longitudinally, and examine whether reporter discrepancies (if any) between parent and child reports of helicopter parenting are predictive of adolescent internalizing behaviors such as depression and anxiety.

The current study’s sample of 296 adolescents (M age= 15.12, SD= .48, range= 2.48) was part of a larger study based on adolescents and their parents. The participants were recruited from the Appalachian region in the Southeastern US. The adolescents and their parents reported on measures of helicopter parenting (Padilla-Walker and Nelson, 2012), and adolescents reported on symptoms of depression (Kovacs, 2011) and anxiety (Spitzer., et al., 2006). The study had two waves of data (called Wave 1 and Wave 3) approximately 1 year apart. The teens and parents completed measures of helicopter parenting at Wave 1. Teen participants completed measures of anxiety and depression at both Wave 1 and 3.

The results of the paired sample t-tests showed that adolescents reported higher levels of maternal HP than their mothers, but there were no significant differences between the fathers and teen reports of HP. Separate models were run for mothers and fathers using multiple regression analysis. Parent income, education, ethnicity, and teen gender were covariates for all models (and adolescent Wave 1 depression and anxiety and COVID timing of Wave 3 were also included when predicting Wave 3 outcomes). The results showed that teen reports of paternal helicopter predicted adolescents’ depressive symptoms in the opposite direction (i.e., higher levels of teen reported father HP was associated with lower teen depressive symptoms both concurrently and longitudinally). Similarly, contrary to hypotheses mother reports of HP were associated with lower teen anxiety symptoms longitudinally. Also, larger discrepancy scores between the father and teen reports of HP were predictive of more teen depressive symptoms both concurrently (Wave 1) and longitudinally (Wave 3), but the direction was opposite of expectations (higher father reported and lower teen reported). Lastly, consistent with hypotheses, the absolute value of the mother and teen HP discrepancy scores (irrespective of the direction), predicted higher teen anxiety symptoms longitudinally (Wave 3).

Overall, the study emphasizes the need to include both parent and the child perspectives in the context of parenting, to conduct more studies with adolescents (i.e., high school students or younger), and focus on examining discrepancy reports (direction and magnitude). Lastly, the study also recommends building future interventions focusing on parents and their teen children

and emphasizing the need to use developmentally appropriate parenting strategies, which do not impinge their child’s autonomy or individuation needs.

Download

Share

COinS