Christopher Travis Source 2

What are the effects of helicopter parenting on college age adults?

Works Cited:

Padilla-Walker, Laura M., and Larry J. Nelson. “Black Hawk Down?: Establishing Parenting as a Distinct Construct From Other Forms of Parental Control During Emerging Adulthood." Journal of Adolescence 35.5 (2012): 1177-1190. ERIC. Web. 3 Oct 2015.

Summary:

The article titled: “Black hawk down?: Establishing helicopter parenting as a distinct construct from other forms of parental control during emerging adulthood” written by Laura M. Padilla-Walker and Larry J. Nelson examines a case study involving the effects of helicopter parenting in college students.  Nelson and Walker also have studied Baumrind’s work concerning the three types of parents.  They introduce three more parenting types as defined by Schaefer.  These are: 1-Acceptance versus rejection, 2- Psychological autonomy versus psychological control & 3- firm control versus lax control.  In their study, 438 undergrad students are examined, ranging from ages 18-29 with 118 men and 320 women.  The goal of the study is to determine the effects of ‘hovering parents’ on the child’s parental relationship and his/her involvement in society and many instances found that parents who are constantly there for their children tend to have strong relationships with their children.  However, this is only true if the surveillance and controlling of the child is done with love and compassion.  Children who are controlled and monitored without compassion learn to resent their parents.  Also, the child tends to be less engaged in their education when they are raised by these over protective parents.  This article attempts to bring empirical evidence to what seems to be an opinionated question.

Think:

            This source turned out to be exactly what I was looking for.  There are tables and charts with hard numbers from the case study, it provides real evidence and facts to support the effects that these parents are having.  This article has changed my opinion on the question of whether or not helicopter parenting have positive or negative effects on a child, and what those effects are.  At first I only thought there could be negative effects.  It seems to me that a child who is constantly given help would ultimately be hindered from making their own life decisions later in life.  However, I never considered the relationship between the child and parent.  Parents that are less involved with their kids are going to have a weaker relationship.  Parents that are over involved have very strong relationships with their kids.  Now the only question is whether or not that is a positive or negative relationship.  Many of these parents hold very strong negative relationships in result of unloving strictness.  It also explains the negative effects as well, one including the fact that children of parents who won’t let go at college and let them make their own decisions get lower grades than other students.  This has changed my thinking, because although grades are important they are not everything.  Having good grades does not increase the well-being of the child.  It may increase the ability for them to make good money and then increase their luxuries, but it does not directly increase well-being.  Well-being is defined through happiness, and everyone’s version of happiness is different.  Having a strong relationship with your family could be your definition of happiness.  So this goes to show that helicopter parenting could actually be positively effecting our children’s well-being in the end.

Synthesis:

            Both of the articles I have researched do an excellent job examining the effects of helicopter parenting.  They both somewhat agree with each other.  “Does Hovering Matter? (short for ‘Does Hovering Matter? Helicopter Parenting and it’s effect on Well-Being”) by LeMoine, Terri, and Buchanan focuses on arguments concerning the overall well-being of the child.  The intermediate steps are not considered as much as the end state of the child.  Whereas “Black Hawk Down? (short for ‘Black Hawk Down?: Establishing helicopter parenting as a distinct construct from other forms of parental control during emerging adulthood” focuses more specifically on the effect of helicopter parents on college students.  It focuses on the relationships between parents and their kids as well as the student success rate of those kids.  While I think both articles do a good job, it would be best if the articles were combined.  That way the reader could see the intermediate steps that are being described in “Black Hawk Down?” (i.e. parental relationship, success in school, involvement on campus) that lead to the overall well-being of the child that is described in “Does Hovering Matter?”.  This would provide evidence of the effects on children for “Does Hovering Matter?” that could be argued to prove its point.  It would also provide more relevance to “Black Hawk Down?”.  While it is an interesting topic, this gives us more reason to discuss it because the well-being of our children is more important than just their parental relationship and grades. 

Question:

            Up to this point I have answered a few of my questions already.  Unfortunately many of these answers lead to more questions.  Does over parenting effect a child’s well-being/independence? Yes.  Is this effect positive or negative? Both, there are positive and negative effects that go along with it.  My new question would have to be: Do the positive effects outweigh the negative effects?  From here I’d like to find more evidence backing up one side or the other.  I would also like to find a very opinionated, or argumentative article about this topic.  I would like to see the reasoning behind someone who very strongly supports over/under parenting.  Is this reasoning logical?  I would like to know if there is a way to determine helicopter parenting as a bad or good method of parenting.