Helicopter Parenting Versus Autonomy Supportive Parenting? A Latent Class Analysis of Parenting Among Emerging Adults and Their Psychological and Relational Well-Being

We aim to identify typologies of parenting among emerging adults and describe how parenting typologies are related to their life satisfaction, self-efficacy, and parent-child relationship. Using a three-step latent class approach, we analyzed 472 mother-child and 426 father-child relations. We recruited the students from a private university in Upstate New York. We confirmed four parenting classes among emerging adult mothers and fathers: helicopter parenting, autonomy supportive parenting, uninvolved parenting, and parenting that combined characteristics of helicopter parenting and autonomy supportive parenting. We found that emerging adults whose parents were in the autonomy supportive parenting class reported higher scores on life satisfaction, self-efficacy, and their relationship with their parents than those in the helicopter parenting and uninvolved parenting classes. In addition, we found that emerging adults in the combined parenting class reported higher scores for life satisfaction and their relationship with their parents than those in the autonomy supportive parenting class.