Is it possible to select the parent container of an object when selected in the view port, rather than the child item?

At present if i want to move an object, I would click on the object in the view port and it then selects the "child" object within the hierarchy. When working with models that have a hierarchy structure, I then have to scroll through the scene panel to select the parent container to move the parent container.

It feels a bit counter intuitive because of the extra steps required. Is there a short cut or preference setting i'm missing?

Thanks