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Perceived Helicopter parenting and its relation with decision making styles and academic performance in the context of Indian adolescents

Introduction: Helicopter parenting (HP) refers to a distinct type of perceived parenting. It is developmentally inappropriate levels of parent involvement and control in their children’s lives, which is often observable through their advice, direction, and help with problem. They even make decisions for their children and personally invest in their children’s goals. Today’s adolescents are expected to make decisions pertaining to their health related behaviour and career related choices. Decision making refers to the capability of developing reliable level of competence to foresee the consequences of alternatives. It is the fourth phase of cognitive development which is normally reached during adolescence, and is synonymous with abstract thinking, logical reasoning and problem-solving skills. Helicopter parenting has been shown to have negative outcomes in emerging adults but so far it has not been investigated in adolescents in India. Methods: This was a cross-sectional, correlational designed study to assess the relationship of Helicopter Parenting with Decision Making styles of Adolescents and their academic performance. Secondary objectives were to ascertain the effect of adolescents’ variables on decision making styles and Helicopter parenting scores. A sample size of 425 adolescents was taken. Results: The mean HP scores were higher than the western scores. HP showed a significant correlation with Maladaptive decision making styles, with HP being a good predictor for maladaptive decision making in adolescents, (R=.077, F(1,423)= 35.086, p=.000. There was no significant correlation with ADMQ Adaptive type but showed a good linear model with self-esteem subscale. There was no statistical significant effect of adolescent’s age on HPS. There was a significant negative correlation of HP scores with above average academic performance (0.115, p=0.017) and with total scores (0.106, p=0.029).Academic performance was a good negative predictor for HP (R=0.011, F (1,424)= 4.800, p=0.029). Conclusions: Indian adolescents score high on HP scale. However Indian adolescents prefer not to strongly agree on HPS items and rather remain more non-decisive with mean score of 3.559.We also found that higher HPS score predicts maladaptive decision making style and negatively predicts self-esteem subscale of adaptive decision making styles. Implications: We need to educate the parents about the detrimental effects of helicopter parenting in order to have more self reliant adolescents.