A study by psychologists from Oakland University in the United States revealed that parents’ overprotection and excessive anxiety negatively affect their children’s academic success. Scientific work published In the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
Observations included 967 young people, mostly girls, with a median age of 18.7 years. As a rule, these were students of the first or second year of higher education institutions in the Midwestern and Southern states of the USA.
60% of the participants had a full family of two parents, 12.3% of the students were raised by a never married parent, the other 10.5% had a parent divorced or separated and had not entered into a new relationship. While the parents of 11.6% of the participants were divorced and at least one of them remarried, only one parent of 3.3% was widowed.
Students were asked to take an exam for academic performance, depressive symptoms, and also answered questions about their parents assessing their anxiety, aggression, and overprotective tendencies.
College students raised by overprotective and anxious parents were found to have problems with academic performance, more severe symptoms of depression, and less ability to control their mental state.