Parents around the world today are heavily invested in their kids’ lives. In what areas are they participating the most? What qualities would they most like to see their children exhibit? And how do they think they could improve as parents?

We answered these questions with some of our research on kids and families (conducted pre-Covid):

Moms and Dads are very active in their children’s lives. More than 9 out of 10 parents are involved in their kids’ well-being and happiness (96%), health (95%), education (94%), daily routines like bedtime and bathing (92%), nutrition (92%), and hobbies and interests (92%). Parents are also heavily involved in their kids’ sports and outdoor activities (86%), screen time (84%), and TV viewing (84%). Moms play more of a role than dads in their kids’ daily routines, nutrition, screen time, and TV viewing.

Respectfulness and confidence are the qualities parents most want to instill in their kids. When asked which qualities are most important for their children, parents said respect (47%), confidence (47%), kindness (36%), independence (36%), and intelligence (35%).

Some parents would go a long way to make life easier for their children. A subset of parents believes it’s important to remove roadblocks for their kids. In fact, 41% strongly agree that they would do almost anything to help their child succeed and 27% strongly agree that they try to make their child’s life as easy as possible.

Parents think they could improve by spending more quality time with their kids and being more patient. The main way that parents – dads especially – think they could do a better job is by spending more quality time with their child (49%). Having more patience with their child followed at 44% among parents overall (#1 among moms). Parents also feel they could improve by taking more time to teach their child things (38%) and planning more fun activities together (38%).