Helicopter Parenting, Parental Control, and Moral Development During Emerging Adulthood

Abstract

This chapter considers different types of parental discipline in relation to different antisocial and prosocial child behaviors. Inductive reasoning, in which parents offer explanations and refer to how wrongdoing affects other people, has been related to a reduction in children’s antisocial behavior and an increase in children’s prosocial behavior. In contrast, power-assertive forms of discipline, most notably corporal punishment, have been related to an increase in children’s antisocial behavior and a decrease in children’s prosocial behavior. The chapter considers how discipline fits into the broader context of the parent-child relationship. Moderators (gender, age, temperament, culture) and mediators (children’s social cognitive biases, perceptions of parental acceptance and rejection, development of empathy and conscience, moral reasoning) of links between parental discipline and child outcomes are described. Interventions that have been used to change parents’ use of discipline, thereby attempting to improve child outcomes, are highlighted