Loes Keijsers receives ERC Consolidator Grant for research on parenting adolescents

With her research, Keijsers looks at parental support during parenting. In general, the more support parents give during childhood, the better the mental well-being of their children. In the PARADOx project, Keijsers examines how parents, in general, may offer more support, but at the same time, depression and anxiety increase in young people. Could it be that parents sometimes provide too much support? And that this is counterproductive? For example, because parents solve all the problems for their children, they do not learn to deal with challenges resiliently.

Mapping family life with smartphone apps

In this five-year project, Keijsers and a team of four young researchers will develop a new theory to understand better how and for whom too much parental support can harm a child's development and, conversely, who benefits from it. To this end, they will map the daily lives of 300 families from hour to hour and day to day with smartphone apps. This will unravel how parenting is related to the individual child's development. Together with methodologists, new methods are being developed to analyze underlying non-linear complex family dynamics. Finally, she will investigate whether parenting advice that is specifically personalized to the individual family contributes to the better well-being of young people. She will do all this by involving young people, families and professionals in the research and designing of solutions.

Prof. Dr. Victor Bekkers, Dean of ESSB: "As dean, I am of course, very proud of Loes Keijsers and the ERC grant she has won.This grant will further and better enable ESSB to position itself nationally and internationally as a leading hub, both disciplinary and interdisciplinary, for innovative research on youth development and resilience."

About the ERC Consolidator Grants

The ERC Consolidator Grant is intended for researchers who completed their PhD 7 to 12 years ago. This European grant allows researchers to establish themselves as independent research leaders.

ESSB has been very successful in securing ERC grants. Within the faculty, Prof. Loes Keijsers is the second researcher to be awarded a Consolidator Grant. In 2020 Prof. Claartje ter Hoeven received this grant. This year, Dr Jess Bier was awarded the ERC Starting Grant. In recent years Prof Renske Keizer, Prof Willem Schinkel, Dr Tom Emery and Dr Rianne Kok received Starting Grants. Sociologist Professor Pearl Dykstra received an Advanced Grant.

About Loes Keijsers

Loes Keijsers is a professor in Clinical Child and Family Studies at ESSB/DPECS. With her research, she wants to understand better how environmental factors such as parenting and social media contribute to the well-being of future generations. She also develops eHealth applications to strengthen resilience (GrowIt! App). Recently she acquired, together with colleagues from ErasmusMC and TUDelft, an NWA grant and a Flagship grant to develop and evaluate eHealth for children.