The Interplay Between Helicopter Parenting And Children's Social Adaptation And Its Mediating Mechanism

Helicopter parenting is a high-warm,controlled parenting style.More studies based on the individualistic culture believe that helicopter parenting has a negative impact on children's social adaptation,especially when they are in their early adulthood.Some studies based on the collectivist culture suggest that helicopter parenting may also benefit the social adjustment of emerging adults,helping them better adapt to society.The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between parental helicopter parenting and social adjustment in schools among Chinese adolescents and college students,as well as the mediating and moderating variables.Using short-term longitudinal study design and questionnaire survey,440 high school students and 418 college students in Dalian were surveyed,and their social adjustment(life satisfaction,peer relationship,school engagement,emotional adjustment),autonomy and sense of entitlement,as well as their parents' helicopter parenting and failure mindset were measured twice.The results show that ? helicopter parenting has a negative predictive effect on children's social adaptation;? autonomy and psychological rights play a significant mediating role between helicopter parenting of parents and social adaptation of children,but the mediating role of psychological rights is relatively weak than that of autonomy,and there is no significant mediating effect on individual social adaptation indicators;? the parental helicopter parenting of the first measurement significantly predicted the parental helicopter parenting of the second measurement,and the social adjustment of the children of the first measurement significantly predicted the social adjustment of the children of the second measurement;? the school engagement of T1 teenagers has a significant positive predictive effect on the helicopter parenting of T2 parents.The statistical results of both horizontal and vertical data show that helicopter parenting has a negative impact on children's social adaptation in China,regardless of whether the children are in the adolescent period or the emerging adult period.Parental helicopter parenting hinders children's social adaptation mainly by reducing their autonomy.These results provide guidance for school mental health education on parenting style,provide better parenting advice for parents,and enrich the meaning of family therapy,which has certain theoretical and practical significance.