No-one has a right to judge other people’s parenting style, but scientists have a good advice for helicopter parents, nevertheless.

Overbearing and intrusive parents who have unrealistic expectations of their children can cause them symptoms of anxiety and even depression, according to a five-year study.

All parents want their children to succeed in life, but it doesn’t mean they should push them academically beyond their limits; such a behavior can result in the child being overly self-critical.

While previous studies focused on high school and college students, this is the first to look at the effects of parental pressure on primary school students. The researchers were focused on determining if this type of parenting leads to self-criticalness on seven-year-olds and subsequent ages.

According to the findings of researchers at the National University of Singapore, parents who keep nagging their children about their grades and studies instill in them a feeling that what the child does is never good enough.

This psychological phenomenon – called maladaptive perfectionism – can become a real problem with time as it is known to increase the child’s risk of developing mental disorders, such as anxiety and depression. In severe cases, maladaptive perfectionism can lead to suicidal thoughts.

For the study, the team conducted experiments at 10 primary schools in Singapore, focusing on seven years old children and performing annual follow-up tests for five years.

The experiment involved the child and the parent who was more involved in the child’s life; the researchers asked the children to solve a series of puzzles, allowing the parents to interfere if they thought the child was stuck.

The researchers’ goal was to observe the level of parental interference in the child’s problem-solving methods, but only when it was irrespective of the fact that child needed the parent’s help or not.

It was observed that when a parent has a tendency of taking control of the situation, the child was more afraid of making mistakes. In addition, the child would have higher stress levels and anxiety.

The study’s findings featured in the Journal of Personality revealed that positive reinforcement from the parent helped children be happier, have higher grades, earn higher incomes later in life, and display stronger morality than those who were constantly pressurized to perform better.
Image Source: She Knows