This report examines the social indicators available for monitoring the situation of children and families in the United States. It assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the indicators for facilitating an informed public and private debate, and it recommends ways in which social indicators can be improved and supplemented to contribute more effectively to the quality and productivity of both the policy debate and the policies themselves. The focus of the report is on (1) the child and those features of the child's environment which affect his or her progress to adulthood and (2) those aspects of the family which pertain to its function as a childrearing environment. After the executive summary provided in section 1, the report specifies the problem, reviews the primary data sets currently in existence, and presents several principles that should guide improvement efforts. Section 3 organizes the wide range of needed child and family indicators into a classification scheme permitting systematic assessment of how well existing data and indicator series meet the needs in each major subject area. To illustrate the kind of analysis required in every indicator area, section 4 presents five subcategories for more detailed examination. Section 5 presents recommendations, specifying actions necessary to support an effective indicator development strategy. (RH)