Exploring College Students’ Reports of Parental Involvement and Levels of Self-Compassion

Abstract

While parent involvement has been linked to many positive young adult outcomes (e.g., autonomy), recent research has highlighted potential negative outcomes (e.g., anxiety) of excessive levels of parent involvement (Schiffrin et al., 2013; Segrin et al., 2012). Overparenting is the term used to refer to excessive levels of parent involvement, and more specifically, overparenting refers to developmentally inappropriate levels of parent involvement. There is concern that children and adolescents who are overparented are missing important opportunities to develop autonomy and effective coping mechanisms. One specific coping mechanism that may be inhibited through overparenting practices is self-compassion. Self-compassion is a way of responding to one’s personal inadequacies with kindness and gentleness and it does not entail blaming or judging oneself (Neff, 2016). Self-compassion has been associated with lower levels of anxiety, depression, and fear of failure (Neff, 2011). We are not aware of any studies examining the link between self-compassion and overparenting. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between self-compassion and overparenting.