A select group of researchers from around the nation gathered at Penn State on April 29 and 30 as part of the Child Study Center’s Parenting At Risk initiative. Funded by the CYFC, this workshop is a culmination of biweekly discussions of core faculty focused on developing an organizing conceptual model of parenting at risk. It was organized to generate further discussion on the integration of neuroscientific and biological approaches with notions of culture, ecology, and family interaction while maintaining a focus on understanding cognitive and emotion based processes in parenting. Discussion topics included understanding the relation of emotion-based and cognitive processes in parenting; understanding how affective neuroscience inform us about individual differences in parenting processes and parenting relationships; understanding how context and culture can assist us in understanding parenting processes and parenting risk; conceptualizing risk in the context of parenting; and, bridging these multiple levels of analysis in research. A goal of the workshop is to consolidate ideas on parenting at risk with a focus on innovative methodologies for research.
Participants included Robert Bradley, University of Arkansas, Little Rock; James Coan, University of Virginia; Seth Pollak, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Francisco Villarruel, Michigan State University; Marsha Weinraub, Temple University; and Thomas Weisner, University of California, Los Angeles. Parenting At Risk core faculty includes Keith Crnic, Director, Child Study Center, Sandy Azar, Pamela Cole, Mark Feinberg, Mark Greenberg, Susan McHale, Doug Teti, and Laureen Teti. Additional Penn State faculty who participated in the workshop included Karen Bierman, Doug Granger, and Robert Nix.