Controlling or Caring? Associations Between Helicopter Parenting and Perceived Conflict and Support at the Within-Family Level

Abstract

Introduction: The cultural normativeness hypothesis suggests that helicopter parenting might be less problematic in Chinese cultures, which strongly value intensive parental involvement. Chinese helicopter parenting might show positive associations with both problematic (i.e., conflict) and beneficial (i.e., support) aspects of youth-parent relationship quality, as it can hamper youth's developmental needs, while also expressing care in a culturally acceptable manner. The present study investigated this notion by examining between- and within-family associations between youth's perceptions of maternal helicopter parenting and perceived youth-mother conflict and support across different timeframes (concurrent and time-lagged). Youth's mother-oriented interdependent self-construal (ISC; the extent to which youth incorporate their relationships with mothers into self-concepts) was examined as the moderator of time-lagged parenting effects. Methods: Participants were 350 late adolescents in Hong Kong (Mage = 18.2, SDage = 1.09, 39.7% male). Family monthly incomes ranged from < $1900 USD (23.4%) to > $5700 USD (24.0%). Participants provided bi-weekly reports of perceived helicopter parenting behaviors and youth-mother conflict and support from September 2020 to April 2021 (tmax = 16). Results: Positive between-family and concurrent within-family associations existed between youth's perceptions of maternal helicopter parenting and both conflict and support. Dynamic Structural Equation Models also indicated that perceived maternal helicopter parenting positively predicted perceived support 2 weeks later, and positively predicted perceived conflict only for youth scoring higher in mother-oriented ISC. Conclusions: Results provide evidence for the “double-edged” nature of helicopter parenting in Chinese families, demonstrating both problematic and potentially adaptive aspects of helicopter parenting for Chinese youth-mother relationship quality.