Psychometric Properties of Helicopter Parenting Instrument in Adolescents

Helicopter parenting is a unique form of parenting style that is generally described as highly intensive and highly involved with the children. A particular parenting style influences all phases of the development and lifestyle of adolescents. Helicopter parents overly protect their children from difficulties by setting some set of instructions without consideration of the uniqueness of their children. Recent literature has gotten huge attention on this parenting style and debating the pros and cons of the development of the child. Higher life satisfaction and better psychological well-being have been found in children of highly intrusive parents. When there are positive effects of helicopter parenting, there are negative outcomes and impacts that have also been studied. The difficulties in emotional regulation, academic productivity, and social skills among children raised by helicopter parenting have been reported in the literature. Low self-efficacy, lack of trust in peers, and alienation from peers has also been associated with helicopter parenting. So, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the psychometric adequacy of the perception of helicopter parenting instruments. 

The study population included all adolescent girls in Kerman in 1400. To collect samples, 422 of them in the age group of 18 to 15 years were selected by snowball sampling method. In the present correlation study, Adolescents responded to the 10-item helicopter parenting instrument with Pistella, Izzo, Isolani, Ioverno, and Baiocco (2020) and the 44-item Leung and Shek (2018) over parenting scale. To determine the validity coefficient of the helicopter parenting instrument from exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and to check its internal consistency from Cronbach's alpha coefficient by SPSS and Amos 24 was used. Also, to study the validity of the structure of the helicopter parenting instrument, its correlation coefficient with the over-parenting scale was reported. 

The results of principal component analysis (PC) and varimax rotation replicated 2-factor structures: mental engagement & practical engagement in the Iranian samples. Indicators of confirmatory factor analysis also showed that the two-factor structure of the instrument has an acceptable fit with the data and the model is approved. Correlational analyses between the perception of the helicopter parenting instrument's factors and with overparenting scale's factors provided initial evidence for the perception of helicopter parenting instrument convergent validity. internal consistency for the perception of helicopter parenting instrument's factors was desirable (a=0.85). 

In sum, these findings provide evidence for the validity and reliability of the perception of helicopter parenting instrument as an instrument to assess the helicopter parenting instrument among Iranian samples. The application of this tool at the level due to the influence of culture requires standardization at large levels and in different social contexts. Overall, the findings of the present study show that the Persian version of the perception of helicopter parenting instrument as a multidimensional self-report tool in the field of parenting studies, in terms of psychometrics to measure the multiple dimensions of helicopter parenting in Iranian girls’ adolescents, is an accurate and reliable tool. Ease of use, brevity, and evaluation of two important factors of parenting are its strengths