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Helicopter parenting and female university students’ anxiety: does parents’ gender matter?

This study examined two potential mechanisms, competence and self-efficacy, that might account for the relationship between helicopter parenting and anxiety symptoms among female university students, and whether any mediating effects differed by parent gender. Structural equation modelling of data collected from 473 undergraduate students showed that both competence and self-efficacy mediated the association between paternal helicopter parenting and female university students’ anxiety symptoms. No mediation effect was found for maternal helicopter parenting. A comparison between paternal and maternal effects revealed that they differed significantly from each other. Specifically, associations between helicopter parenting and female university students’ competence and self-efficacy were much stronger for fathers than for mothers. Implications of the gender-specific findings are discussed in this article, and their importance for prevention and intervention are highlighted.