Family Lab

Research Projects

The FYC Project

The Families with Young Children (FYC) Project is investigating how family relationships and interactions affect young children over time. We are interested in learning more about how families interact together. We are especially interested in how parents interact together as a couple, together as parents, and with their children as a whole family. And how all of these various roles and relationships may affect each other. There has been little research done in this area of family life, and it is our belief that further exploration of this topic will lead to healthier relationships between couples and their children.

Participation in our study involves the following:

  1. Parents will fill out questionnaires regarding their relationships with their partner and child, their wellbeing and their child's wellbeing, and general family dynamics.
  2. Children will take a brief vocabulary test using pictures to identify words, then participate in a puppet task where they are asked about feelings.
  3. Parents will discuss an everyday problem with each other while the child is present.
  4. Children will teach the parents about a story they are read by the researchers.
  5. The whole family plays together, building a craft.

The project takes about one hour at the WWU campus. You will also be asked to fill out questionnaires at home, prior to the session. All information will remain completely confidential before, during, and after the study is complete.

During the session we will provide child supervision, including supervision of additional siblings. Families will receive a small compensation for their time.

We have afternoon and evening sessions available Monday through Friday, and all day Saturdays. Please contact us by phone or email if you would like to sign up, or find out more information about the study on the Contact Us page.

If you are not eligible or able to participate in this study, but are interested in finding out about other child and family studies, please see the WWU Psychology CLASP web site to sign-up to be contacted about other studies happening in our department.