​News | Study reviews the impact of mother’s and child’s relationship

Berita Harian, page 16 

 

A study by a group of NTU researchers showed that parenting stress may weaken the relationship between mother and child during the early stages of their social interaction process. The study suggested that this would reduce the mother's ability to share her child's perspective. The inability to appreciate the child’s viewpoint may reduce the quality of parental engagement and undermine the mother-child relationship in the long run. The study was conducted on 31 pairs of mother and child from Singapore while they were watching children’s animation clips together. The researchers hoped that the findings will raise awareness among mothers. Head of the Social and Affective Science Laboratory (San-Lab) at NTU, Asst Prof Gianluca Esposito, said: "The psychological well-being of a mother is crucial to the quality of the mother-child relationship and to the child's development during the early stages of social interaction." First author of the study, Ms. Atiqah Azhari, a PhD candidate in San-Lab, said: “If you look at what contributes to parenting pressure...most of it comes from wanting to be a better mother. Our studies show that sometimes those pressures conflict with what you want to achieve.”