Helicopter Parenting and Drinking Outcomes Among College Students: The Moderating Role of Family Income
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Helicopter Parenting and Drinking Outcomes Among College Students: The Moderating Role of Family Income Meredith McGinley1 · Alexandra N. Davis2 Accepted: 19 October 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Helicopter parenting, a form of overcontrol defined by intense levels of monitoring and supervision, has been linked to an increase in risky behaviors in emerging adults. However, the context may modify how helicopter parenting operates on adjustment in this population. The current study sought to better understand the contextualizing role of family income on the relations between helicopter parenting and drinking behaviors during college. Undergraduates (N = 171; 49% female; M age = 18.82; 68% White; M family income = $60,001–$75,000) completed measures of helicopter parenting, income, and multiple indices of alcohol consumption and problematic drinking. To accommodate the zero-inflated data for the outcome variable, two-part regression modeling was used to examine whether the interaction among (maternal or paternal) helicopter parenting and income was significant. Although the interaction was not significant for the binary models, the interaction generally predicted the magnitude of drinking. For low-income college students, increased helicopter parenting from mothers and fathers deterred most drinking behaviors. For high-income college students, increased maternal and paternal helicopter parenting was associated with a greater degree of average number of drinks consumed per day and drinking to intoxication. Overall, the results suggest that considering the economic conditions of families is important when examining the influence of parenting behaviors on young adult drinking patterns. While helicopter parenting might not be adaptive for high-income families, this form of parenting might serve a different function in low-income families by reducing risky behaviors of undergraduates. Keywords Helicopter parenting · Income · Problem drinking · Alcohol consumption
Introduction Drinking behaviors remain a concern when understanding the health of young adults, particularly young adult college students (Reid and Carey 2015). Approximately 58% of college students, ages 18–22, report drinking alcohol in the past month, while 37.9% report binge drinking in the past month (NSDUH 2015). This heightened problem drinking occurs during emerging adulthood, defined as a time of identity formation, transitions, and other stressors (Arnett 2007). Young adults who define this period of life as a time of experimentation engage in increased binge drinking, drug
* Meredith McGinley [email protected] 1
University of Wisconsin-Parkside, MOLN 262, Kenosha, WI 53144, USA
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
2
use, and sexual activity (Nelson et al. 2015). However, risky behaviors are less prevalent when emerging adult children receive support, nurturance, and appropriate forms of control from their parents (Schwartz et al. 2009). Given the continued buffering effe
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