Liliana J. Lengua Ph.D.

Liliana Lengua, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at the University of Washington, a child clinical psychologist, and the founding director of the Center for Child and Family Well-being. She studies children’s individual differences in response to the experience of socioeconomic, psychosocial, family, and parenting risk factors. Children’s temperament, or individual differences in emotionality and self-regulation, differentiates children who are likely to develop problems in the face of risk from those who are resilient. Dr. Lengua’s most recent work examines the development of children’s self-regulation, a key predictor of their social, emotional, and academic competence, in preschool children growing up in poverty and low income homes. Adversity, family functioning, parenting and physiology are studied as potential mechanisms in children’s developing self-regulation. The information gained from this study is the basis for a parenting program Dr. Lengua created. The program supports effective parenting behaviors that promote children's social-emotional well-being, and is infused with mindfulness-based emotion regulation practices for parents to support their own well-being and effective parenting. Her most profound learning experiences come from raising her three children, now all teens, and each of whom has a unique temperament.