Typologies of helicopter parenting and parental affection: associations with emerging adults' academic outcomes.

This study's first aim was to identify typologies of parenting among emerging adults based on helicopter parenting and parental affection indicators. Our second aim was to determine whether these defined types of parenting related to emerging adults' self-efficacy and grade point average (GPA) across four parent–child gender combinations. We collected data from college students at three universities in the eastern United States (n = 848). Using latent class analysis, five parenting latent classes were identified: Low helicopter parenting (helicopter)-High parental affection (affection), Low helicopter-Low affection, High helicopter-High affection, High helicopter-Low affection, and Mixed helicopter-High affection. Furthermore, we found that children in the Low helicopter-High affection class reported better self-efficacy and GPA than those in the High helicopter-High affection class in the son-report-mother and daughter-report-mother groups. In addition, children in the Low helicopter-High affection class reported better self-efficacy than those in the Low helicopter-Low affection class in the son-report-father and daughter-report-father groups. Consequently, our findings highlight the significance of a multidimensional construct of parenting, focusing on helicopter parenting and parental affection. Our findings also demonstrate that types of parenting and their associations with emerging adults' academic outcomes vary according to parent–child gender contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]