Researchers at ISU’s Institute of Social and Behavioral Research have found evidence suggesting how a person was raised foretells their future.The Iowa Youth and Families Project, led by Rand Conger, is being conducted to show how a person’s childhood affects them throughout the rest of their life.”It’s a basic assumption that children that were abused will in turn abuse their children,” he said, “but there is really not that strong of a connection.”In 1989, Conger, professor of sociology, said he began to study the affects of economic problems on farm families in the area, which has now expanded to cover many different areas of research about the family.He said he was particularly interested in how experiences in a child’s family of origin can affect the child’s capabilities later in life as a parent or a spouse. He is currently working to find connections.Some behaviors do tend to replicate, Conger said. Children who were raised with less supervision and were treated harshly by their parents tend to have children earlier in their own lives.”It seems that these children were the most anxious to take on adult roles; their childhood was unhappy, so they were in a hurry to get past that,” he said.Children don’t always follow the projected course with their own families though, Conger said. Some of the adolescents who were raised in a less nurturing environment do overcome it in their own parenting, and one of the goals of the Study of Emerging Families is to try to explain why this happens, he said.The project began more than 10 years ago with interviews of 550 seventh graders and their parents. Initially, the families participating in the study were contacted once a year to participate in interviews, Conger said. The sessions consisted of recording parent and child interactions, then analyzing the videos later.The study is now following 100 of the original adolescents who have children older than the age of two. These families participate in taped interviews every other year, along with short phone interviews on opposite years to keep track of the families.Conger said he felt they had an advantage over other studies because the study is longitudinal and is based on actual observations of the families.Rand Conger’s wife, Katherine, is one of the 15 researchers who have been involved in this project. She also stressed the importance of the longitudinal study because it provides more insight into how family relationships evolve over time.”A lot of research is just a single snapshot of what is right now,” said Katherine Conger, associate scientist at the Institute for Social and Behavioral Research.Because the project has been going on for 12 years, Katherine Conger said she felt it showed relationship patterns better than other studies.Rand Conger said the researchers plan to be following another 200 families within the next few years and continue the study for the next 10 years.He said he hoped the results of all of these studies will benefit families and communities in Iowa. Information the research team finds will be given to organizations such as ISU Extension Services so they can develop community prevention programs such as effective parenting programs.”Our hope is also that the information is helpful to Iowa legislators and policy makers in shaping state and community funded programs,” Conger said.