Higher education administrators today are simultaneously encountering first-year college students that are struggling to handle common challenges and parents intervening on behalf of their college children. With the ongoing emerging adult mental and emotional health crisis, parental involvement continues to be on the rise. The occurrences of the two phenomena- the current emotional health crisis and high parental involvement- provokes the question of if and how they might be related. Drawing from coping theory and parental attachment theory, this study employed a quantitative survey design to analyze the coping skills and parental attachment levels of a first-year student sample at a large, public research institution in the Northeast United States. A series of T-tests, ANOVAs, and MANOVAs were conducted to determine differences in both coping skill and parental attachment theory by gender identity, race/ethnicity, and first-generation status. A regression analysis was conducted to determine if parental attachment did affect the coping skill level of first-year students. Results showed differences in parental attachment and coping ability across different first-year populations, and that the parental attachment level of a first-year student accounted for 13.1% of the variation in coping skill level. Implications include formal emotional health education in college, meaningful parent programming, strict interpretation of FERPA, and general practice of encouraging parents to allow students to problem-solve on their own. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]