2026/01/09 by Andrea L. Howard, Sydney Bota, Megan Lamb · 1 voice
Psychology · #Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development #Child Abuse and Trauma #Family and Disability Support Research
paper · doi:10.1177/21676968251407137
Numerous instruments assessing helicopter parenting exist, but items within and across scales are diverse and often describe behaviors that are incongruent with basic construct criteria. We recruited n = 1,222 emerging adults to rate how well 54 item stems conformed to a broad provided description of helicopter parenting (i.e., definitional correspondence), and answer follow-up questions related to item frequency, personal experience with the behavior, and perceived parent motivations. Correspondence ratings varied widely. For 12 items, emerging adults who directly experienced a behavior had lower definitional correspondence ratings compared to those with no direct experience. Close to half of items were seen as helicopter parenting only if the behaviors were frequently-occurring. Definitional correspondence was highly correlated with perceived control and fear of failure motives, and negatively correlated with perceived support motives. We offer a provisional definition of helicopter parenting and offer suggestions for item selection and refinement in ongoing construct validation research.