Overparenting: The current situation in Greece comparing to European and Worldwide context.

Abstract

Overparenting is a parental style that seems to be popular in all over the world. Specific parental characteristics and multi-cultural differences seemed to play an important role in this parental style to appear. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to identify the factors shaping overparenting and the impact in children, adolescents and young adults in Greece, comparing to European and Worldwide context. A literature review was conducted using online databases and words such as «overparenting», «helicopter parents», «intrusive parenting», «parental interference», and «parental control». Overparenting seems to be related to negative effects in children’s psychosocial and mental health. It was associated with lack of autonomy, low levels of self-regulation and mastery, which affected social adjustment skills and higher levels of anxiety, depressive symptoms, poor self-regulation and low levels of life satisfaction in children. In Greece, overparenting was related to poor school adjustment, obesity, internet addiction and post-traumatic stress from bullying. Overparenting is becoming more and more popular, so more research is becoming a necessity. It is important for every state to support and consult parents, from pregnancy to school, with specialized programs and teachers’ training with the collaboration of social scientists. Further research of the phenomenon, in Greece and cross-culturally, is however needed.