Book excerpt: From leading researchers, this book presents important advances in understanding how growing up in a discordant family affects child adjustment, the factors that make certain children more vulnerable than others, and what can be done to help. It is a state-of-the-science follow-up to the authors' seminal earlier work, Children and Marital Conflict: The Impact of Family Dispute and Resolution. The volume presents a new conceptual framework that draws on current knowledge about family processes; parenting; attachment; and children's emotional, physiological, cognitive, and behavioral development. Innovative research methods are explained and promising directions for clinical practice with children and families are discussed.