Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SAFE-SORRY (Better safe than sorry? Identifying causes of overprotective parenting in a changing social world)
Reporting period: 2022-10-01 to 2024-03-31
Popular and scientific accounts describe how the phenomenon of overprotective parenting (also labeled “helicopter parenting” or “overparenting”) woul be on the rise. This evolution could be problematic, as it may put future generations of adolescents and parents at risk for mental health problems, including anxiety and depression. Although past research offered some insights into the causes of overprotection, thereby identifying a number of parent-related and child-related determinants, there is no systematic research on the societal, economic, and cultural causes of overprotective parenting. By bringing together theories from multiple disciplines (including developmental psychology, social psychology, sociology, economics, and gender studies), the aim of this project is to test whether overprotection is rooted in parents’ context-related representations, such as their perceptions of societal expectations about how parents ought to raise children. Second, we examine whether specific characteristic of their cultural context shape these representations and intensify their tendency to engage in overprotective parenting. Third, we seek to identify parental risk and resilience factors, which may explain why some parents are either vulnerable or immune to these socio-cultural pressures. To address these research goals, we adopt a multi-method approach, relying on longitudinal, experimental, observational and cross-cultural research. Thus, the overall project seeks to highlight the fundamental importance of considering the complexities related to the socio-economic and cultural context in which parent-child interactions take place. Such findings may be informative for policy-makers and practitioners, and, accordingly, may help to better equip parents for facing the challenges of parenthood in a complex and changing social world.
Several studies are currently ongoing, using a diversity of methodologies. First, a longitudinal, questionnaire-based study has been started during spring 2022. A sample of more than 300 parents have participated at a first data gathering. Throughout the project, these participants will be contacted again at five occasions in order to examine how their context-related representations and parenting practices develop across time. Second, a cross-cultural questionnaire-based study is currently being conducted as well. Specifically, in eight different countries, participants are completing the same set of questionnaires, which will allow us to examine similarities and differences across different cultural contexts. Third, we also conducting a qualitative study focusing on parents' representations of virtual intimacy among adolescents and their beliefs about its implications for child development. Finally, we are also preparing a number of experimental studies, in order to obtain more causal evidence for the reasons why parents educate their children in a particular way.
The combination of these longitudinal, cross-cultural, qualitative, and experimental data will provide us with a more detailed understanding of the socio-cultural and economic challenges that parents are currently facing, it will help us identify potential factors of risk and resilience among parents, and it will inform us about how these factors in turn may shape their parenthood.