Curious about what we study? Explore the PAIR Lab’s current and past research focused on children’s emotions, development, and relationships with caregivers.
Current Projects
Our current research explores how children experience learning and emotions, how parents support their development and how family interactions unfold in everyday settings.
Learning, Emotions and Parenting
Funded by the National Science Foundation, LEAP aims to better understand how children feel about school as they transition to formal schooling and how parents can help children develop adaptive emotions about learning.
The study is conducted by researchers at the University of Georgia, Texas A&M University and Purdue University.
Conference Presentation
- Prather, K., Zhang, S., Wang, Z., Eason, S., & Ravindran, N. (2025, May). Parental Beliefs and Expectations for Children’s Education Attainment as Predictors of the Home Learning Environment. Poster presented at the 2025 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Synchrony in Naturalistic Contexts
SYNC examines how parents’ and children’s bodies naturally “get in sync” with each other during everyday life at home.
Participating parents and children wear small heart-rate monitors for six to eight hours at home. Children also wear a small audio recorder on their clothing during the same period, while parents complete several brief online questionnaires.
Daily Experiences and Routines
DEAR examines young children’s routines and experiences in their daily lives.
Parents and their toddler- or preschool-aged child complete a one-hour laboratory visit that includes games and surveys. Following the visit, parents receive brief smartphone surveys five times per day for seven days.
Previous Projects
Completed studies have examined parent responses to children’s emotions and parent-child interaction patterns in naturalistic, everyday settings.
Parents and Children Together PACT Extension Project
This small extension study followed a recently concluded longitudinal investigation led by Dr. Geoffrey Brown.
It used surveys to better understand how Black American parents respond to preschool-aged children’s negative emotions in different contexts and how parents’ experiences, beliefs and goals shape their parenting practices.
The study was funded by the Society for Research in Child Development Small Grants Program for Early Career Scholars.
Parent-Child Interactions Project PCIP
This pilot study examined parent-child interactions in naturalistic settings during the preschool years, particularly during emotionally challenging situations.
Parent-child dyads were recorded through Zoom while completing a series of interaction tasks. Children also wore an audio recorder as they went about their daily routines for 16 hours.
Publications
- Prather, K., Brown, G. L., & Ravindran, N. (2026). Children’s negative emotions and parent emotion socialization following parent-child and sibling interactions in naturalistic settings. Family Relations.
- Ravindran, N., Prather, K., & Carvalho, C. (2026). Maternal responses to children’s negative emotions in real-world settings: A diathesis-stress approach. Journal of Family Psychology.
Conference Presentations
- Kim, J., Carvalho, C., Prather, K., & Ravindran, R. (2025, May). Dyadic behavioral flexibility moderates the relationships between maternal depression and child internalizing problems. Poster presented at the 2025 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
- Ravindran, N., Carvalho, C., & Prather, K. (2025, May). Mother-child coregulation following children’s spontaneous expressions of negative emotion in the home. In K. Degirmencioglu (Chair), Parent-Child Behavioral Coregulation Dynamics in Normative, High-Risk, and Maltreated Samples: From Contingency to Child Regulation. Society for Research in Child Development Biennial Meeting, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
- Ravindran, N., Prather, K., & Carvalho, C. (2025, May). Proximal predictors of maternal responses to children’s negative emotions in naturalistic settings. In M. A. Fields-Olivieri and N. Ravindran (Chairs), Beyond the Lab: Measuring Young Children’s Distress and Parental Emotion Socialization in Real-World Settings. Society for Research in Child Development Biennial Meeting, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
- Ravindran, R., & Prather, K. (2023, November). Maternal and paternal responses to children’s negative emotions elicited by parent-child and sibling conflict in naturalistic settings. Poster presented at the 2023 National Council on Family Relations Annual Conference, Orlando, Florida.
- Prather, K., & Ravindran, N. (2023, March). Parental emotional functioning as a predictor of parental responsiveness to child cries in naturalistic settings. Poster presented at the 2023 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Salt Lake City, Utah.