Theteamofpsychologistssaidlabelssuchas‘helicopterparent...

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The team of psychologists said labels such as ‘helicopter parents’, ‘tiger mums’ or ‘little emperors’ undermine（损坏） parents who place their children at the centre of family life, and assume that parents’ needs come last. In reality, by focusing on maximizing their children’s happiness, they enjoy life and their role as parents more, they claimed. Study leader Claire Ashton-James, from VU University in Amsterdam, said there is little research to support the assumption that investing time in your children comes at some personal cost.

Together with psychologist colleagues at the University of British Columbia in Canada, Dr Ashton-James conducted two studies with 322 parents who had at least one child aged 18 or younger living at home.

In the first study parents were asked to complete a child-centrism scale to gauge their parenting style. This included the degree to which they agreed with statements such as, ‘The happiness of my children is more important to me than my own happiness’. They were also given a survey to measure the happiness and purpose they experienced from having children by responding to statements such as, ‘My children make my life meaningful’. The researchers found that child-centric parents were significantly more likely to report higher levels of happiness and a greater sense of purpose derived from having children.

Parents taking part in the second study were asked to retell their previous day’s activities and report how they felt during each activity. The results found more involved parents had stronger positive feelings, weaker negative feelings, and felt their lives had more meaning during childcare.

In addition, the well-being of child-centric parents was not affected negatively throughout the rest of the day, for example when they were doing housework.

This indicated their approach to parenting does not hurt their happiness when they are not taking care of their children, perhaps when they might start to feel resentful about how little time they spend on themselves. It also proved that they weren’t exaggerating how much enjoyment they got from parenting to compensate for the sacrifices they made, the researchers said.

The report, published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, concluded: ‘We found a significant positive relationship between child-centrism and the subjective happiness and meaning of life that participants reported deriving from parenting,’

According to the findings, Dr Ashton-James added: ‘The consequences of child-focused forms of parenting for the wellbeing of parents have been a source of heated debate in the popular media, largely in the absence of research. ‘These findings suggest that the more care and attention people give to others, the more happiness and meaning they experience. ‘From this perspective, the more invested parents are in their children’s well-being – that is, the more “child-centric” parents are – the more happiness and meaning they will derive from parenting.

59. The passage is meant to __________.

A. prove parents’ happiness doesn’t only derive from parenting

B. encourage parents to spend more time on themselves

C. offer some advice on what to do to be good parents

D. argue that child-focused parents are really happy.

60. The underlined word “gauge” in Paragraph 3 probably means “________”.

A. adjust B. assess C. follow D. form

61. The findings of the two studies________.

A. challenge the popular thoughts about parenting

B. change the psychologists’ research objectives

C. confirm the psychologists’ assumption D. disagree with each other

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