In the Parent-Child Relations Lab (PCRL), we focus on parenting processes and children’s emotional and behavioral attributes that contribute to the emergence of early mental health problems in children. We study these processes in the context of a variety of risk conditions that potentially increase the experience of stress in the family, which in turn may act as a change agent to deflect positive trajectories. Our goal is integrate basic developmental processes and longitudinal methods in the study of parent-child relationships to better understand the complex pathways of influence that characterize the emergence of disorder during early childhood.