Helicopter Parenting and Adolescent Development: From the Perspective of Mental Health

Abstract

Helicopter parenting is a unique form of parenting style that is generally described as highly intensive and highly involved with the children. A particular parenting style influences all phases of development and life style of adolescent. Helicopter parents overly protect their children from the difficulties by setting some set of instructions without consideration of the uniqueness of their children. Recent literature has got huge attention on this parenting style and debating the pros and cons on the development of child. Higher life satisfaction and better psychological wellbeing have been found in the children of highly intrusive parents. When there are positive effects of helicopter parenting, there are negative outcome and impacts that have also been studied. The difficulties in emotional regulation, academic productivity, and social skills among children raised by helicopter parenting have been reported in the literature. Low self-efficacy, lack of trust on peers, and alienation from peers have also been associated with helicopter parenting. The chapter highlights the associated aspects of childhood and adolescence, raised by helicopter parenting. As parents have their own concern about raising their children in certain manner, it is important to understand the underlying mechanism of parenting style. Therefore, this chapter also describes the theoretical framework. The associated mental health issues and supportive psychological intervention to be also discussed.