College students and their relationships with parents

This study identified college age emerging adults’ perceptions of their parents’ parenting as it relates to three constructs of parenting and how those constructs related to the emerging adults’ psychological well-being during the transition to college. Participants in this study were traditional college students at The University of Alabama who were single, never married, between the ages of 18 and 22 years, and have heterosexual parents. The emerging adults surveyed perceived three separate constructs of their parents’ parenting: warmth/support, hovering and intrusion, and taking over. Participants who perceived high parental warmth and support reported better psychological well-being in all areas of assessment (anxiety, stress, loneliness, depression, and GPA). Those who perceived parents to be hovering and intruding or taking over their life reported lower levels of psychological well-being, although GPA was unrelated.