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hubie [soylentnews.org] writes:

Overly Involved Parents May Hold Their Kids Back Professionally [ncsu.edu]:

A recent study of more than 2,000 early-career adults found that young people whose parents were still very closely involved in their lives tended to have occupations with less "prestige" than young people whose parents were less involved.

"It is well-established that parental investment during their children's childhood and adolescence has positive outcomes," says Anna Manzoni, co-author of a paper on the work and a professor of sociology at North Carolina State University. "However, our study points to a shift in parental role as young people mature into early adulthood – ages 18-28.

"Specifically, our findings suggest that parents who are heavily involved with their children – spending lots of time advising them, sharing many activities, etc. – actually hinder the child's ability to launch."

Two key concepts in the study are "family social capital" and "occupational prestige." Family social capital refers to the norms, information and support parents provide through everyday interactions with their children. Occupational prestige is measured by assessing the average education and income for a given occupation.

[...] "The key finding was that low levels of family social capital positively influence adolescent occupational prestige while strongly tied family social capital negatively influences it," says Leppard. "In other words, too much parental involvement was associated with a negative impact on the occupational attainment of emerging adults.

"This absolutely took us by surprise," says Manzoni. "We checked our measures time and time again to make sure the results were correct. There is so much scholarship demonstrating how family social capital positively impacts everything from school performance to healthy behaviors, our findings at first seemed contradictory.

"But what the findings suggest is that, during the transition to adulthood, there can be too much of a good thing. This is an age in which young people need to make the transition to independence. And failure to do so is associated with professional constraints early in their careers."

So, what's the takeaway message for parents?

"As young people move into early adulthood, the parental role may need to shift away from intensive guidance and toward a more hands-off, supportive posture that allows children to develop autonomy, make mistakes, and navigate the labor market on their own," Manzoni says.

Journal Reference: https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2025.2603380 [doi.org]

Original Submission