Anxiety, Fear and Stress as Predictors of Overparenting

Overparenting, often referred to as helicopter parenting, is characterized by developmentally inappropriate and overly involved parenting. Although it generally stems from a well-intended desire to help their child, overparenting often hinders the development of adaptive coping behaviors, effective interpersonal skills, and sense of well-being, specifically among young adult children resulting in poor distress tolerance, elevated levels of emotional distress, substance use and interpersonal difficulties. While the impacts of overparenting are a well-studied phenomenon, relatively little is known about the emotional and psychological factors that may contribute to parents’ tendency to engage in overparenting behaviors in the first place. Using a sample of 318 parents of college students, collected through Mechanical Turk, we assessed parents’ anxiety, fear, and stress as potential predictors of overparenting. Results provide preliminary evidence that parents’ anxiety, fear, and stress may be associated with overparenting, with fear associated with threats to child safety emerging as the strongest predictor. Interestingly, stress had an inverse relationship with overparenting, and we found that overparenting mediates the relationship between parental fear for child safety and parenting stress. This suggests that overparenting may be a coping mechanism designed to address experiences of fear and thereby reduce parenting stress. Implications and possible directions for future research are discussed.