Parenting Practices

Active Projects

In collaboration with Rachel Barr (Georgetown University) and Mark Feinberg (Pennsylvania State University), Professor Ryan developed a parenting intervention for mothers and fathers of newborns. Connect to Baby (CTB) targets four essential interaction skills – Noticing, Following, Talking and Encouraging – and works with mothers and fathers to use these skills both when interacting with their babies and when interacting with each other. The aim is to enhance all relationships in the family system simultaneously – mother-baby, father-baby, and mother-father – in an effort to strengthen the whole family system. The program uses digital media and video feedback to enhance its effectiveness.

Drs. Ryan and Barr are currently fielding a randomized controlled trial of CTB in partnership with the United Planning Organization and 14 Early Head Start centers in Washington, DC. The two–year trial will assess the feasibility and effectiveness of CTB delivered in a hybrid format, with over half of the sessions delivered remotely via Zoom.

Connect to Baby Intervention

Funding:

  • National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2023-2025, $430,000

  • Georgetown Reflective Engagement Initiative Grant, 2018-2019, $25,000

  • Georgetown-Howard Universities Center for Clinical and Translational Science Pilot Grant, 2018-2019, $40,000

 

In collaboration with the colleagues at the Massive Data Institute at Georgetown and social scientists from the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, Professor Ryan is blending computer science and social science to discover the nature and content of parenting information shared online, specifically on social media. With funding from the National Science Foundation, she is exploring the design, measurement and analytic issues associated with using social media data to study parenting and identifying key questions about parenting that social media data can illuminate. Currently, she is asking two interrelated questions using social media data (Twitter, specifically): 1) How do parents define "good parenting" in online conversations? 2) What is the nature of conversation about homeschooling among parents in the wake of widespread school closures due to COVID-19? 

Parenting Online: Understanding Parenting Practices and Attitudes using Big Data

Funding:

  • National Science Foundation, 2019-2024, $2.3 million

Past Projects

Socioeconomic Differences in Parenting over Time

Funding:

  • Russell Sage Foundation & Washington Center for Economic Growth, 2015-2017, $100,000

  • Spencer Foundation, 2015-2017, $225,000

  • National Science Foundation, 2014-2016, $250,000

Family structure and child wellbeing

Funding:

  • NIH National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

  • Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin Madison

In collaboration with Ariel Kalil at the University of Chicago, Professor Ryan is investigating the many ways parenting behavior, beliefs and attitudes have changed in the U.S. over the last 30 years and the implications of those changes for socioeconomic differences in children’s home environments. Drawing data from multiple large nationally representative surveys, the team has identified a sharp rise in the frequency with which parents across the socioeconomic distribution are engaging in educationally enriching activities with young children, but persistent gaps in that frequency across lower and higher income families. The project also explores the parental values and attitudes that might help explain those changes over time and the persistent SES-based gaps. 

Professor Ryan spent 10 years researching the implications of the rise in nonmarital childbirth and single motherhood for children’s early and later development. Using multiple large, nationally representative datasets, she found that nonmarital childbirth, parental divorce, and family structure instability were all associated with poor socioemotional, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes for children, including age at first intercourse. Those effects, however, were reserved for more socioeconomically at-risk families. Moreover, family structure instability had stronger effects on children’s development when it occurred early in life rather than the middle childhood years.