Culture Post: Helicopter Parenting Creates Social and Educational Problems Later in Life

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on News Medical.

Overly strict parents undermine the autonomy of their children which can lead to less favorable outcomes well into adulthood, a new study has shown.

A team of researchers at the University of Virginia reveals that teenagers whose parents are overbearing and overcontrolling may have difficulties in social relationships and educational attainment by the time the teens reach 32 years old.

The study findings, published in the journal Child Development, highlights the long-term impact on the youth when their parents are overly strict and protective.

For the study, researchers studied 184 individuals between the ages of 13 and 32, from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds.  The study participants were equally distributed by gender. The team asked the participants to answer questionnaires about themselves and their parents.

They gathered information about the participants’ experiences of being controlled by their parents during their teen years.

Study results revealed that having overcontrolling parents at age 13 was tied to less supportive romantic relationships for those who were in relationships by the time they were 27 years old.

The team also found that the children of overcontrolling parents were less likely to be in a relationship by age 32, and they had lower educational attainment by the same age. The most critical age of when parents begin to be controlling was between 15 and 16, the team said. Further, these teens were less psychologically mature and less liked by their friends.

Source: News Medical
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200618/Helicopter-parenting-creates-social-and-educational-problems-later-in-life.aspx

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