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Hi there,
I would really appreciate your help. For my uni work, I'm looking at how parenting is related to wellbeing - i.e. do happy mums parent differently to unhappy mums? Do mums who are more connected to their communities parent differently to those who feel more isolated? As a mum of a 2 year old (who I am amazed to say is currently sleeping for longer than 6 hours for the first time ever!), I have my thoughts, but it would be great if you could add your perspective.
The survey will only take 5-10 minutes, is completely anonymous and the feedback I've had so far is that it's an interesting series of questions, and not at all painful!
It's for any UK-based mums with at least one child aged 0-4 years, (although you do need to be at least 18 years old) and here's the link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/wellbeingmums
I will come back and let you know the results when they are all in.
Many thanks
Caitlyn
Heya, do you still need people to take your survey?
I know how hard it is getting responses for research!
Regards,
Hi,
Thanks for your comment - I've actually finished my project now, but really appreciate the offer.
I've been meaning to come back and provide an update on the findings, so for those who did help out with the survey, see below for some info.
Just to give a quick overview, the survey was seeking to measure a few things, but mental wellbeing was central to the premise of the research. Good mental wellbeing is defined as being about the presence of positive attributes that help us respond to challenges. These include self-acceptance, autonomy, resilience, happiness (it is more than just an absence of mental illness).
Alongside this, the survey looked at three different aspects of parenting – warmth, hostility and consistency (primarily from a discipline perspective). The analysis then looked at whether having good mental wellbeing was associated with any of these types of parenting.
I found that higher levels of mental wellbeing were associated with higher levels of parenting warmth and lower levels of hostility. Consistency wasn’t associated with mental wellbeing at all.
Other factors that also affected parenting were the number of children in a family (more children was associated with lower warmth); and age of child (warmth was generally lower for older children – although the survey was only looking at children aged 0-4, so can only comment on this age range).
Of course, these results are only talking about averages, and there may be good reasons why warmth is lower for older children, possibly because of the need for a different style of parenting in toddlers vs babies.
If anyone is interested in this area, the new economics foundation have some really good info on mental wellbeing, particularly how it can be increased in really practical ways (“Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning and Give”).http://www.neweconomics.org/projects/entry/five-ways-to-well-being
Thank you all again for your help!
Hi Cake2013, thank you for the update. I think it is important for everyone to remember that even if someone has more children than others, this doesn't mean that those children are getting less warmth, or that their older children are receiving less love, as I am sure that most parents, do do their utmost to ensure that all their children are catered for equally.
My favourit child is the one standing in front of me : )
I told my kids that (I read it somewhere) and they often play fight to be the one clinging (desperatly) to the front of me, while saying stuff like, me, it's me, daddy loves me the most.
: )
ha ha sounds like fun! 
Interesting survey results!
My boys are a LOT older now and it's fascinating how different their personalities are. I met with my sister this week and she also has two grown up children and we had a long chat about the differences between the four of them, and some of our experiences of our childhood. The one thing that came out very clearly from her memories was that she felt her choices and activities were very restricted and she felt she was expected to follow in my footsteps rather than going her own way. All of which leads me to say that we can love them all the same with lots of warmth, it's just that as time goes on there is less of a "blueprint" as our relationships with each one will become more individual.
Hi Caitlyn really interesting survey.
Anybody who is affected by doing this survey please come and start a discussion about how you are feeling in Parenting Support.