A developmental perspective of family violence requires examining the parental, adolescent, and family system characteristics that place a family at-risk for destructive parent-child relations in adolescence. Families (N=64), all of which consisted of a youth aged 10-16 and two parents, completed the Adolescent-Abuse Inventory (AAI); the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist (ACBC); a measure of the family as an interactional system (FACES); the Cornell Parent Behavior Description (CPBD); and assessments of adolescent physical maturation, cognitive functioning, life events (A-FILE), and demographic and socioeconomic factors. Parental scores on the AAI permitted identification of families at high risk for destructive parent-child relations. Analyses of results showed that risk for destructive parent-child relations in adolescence was not associated with socioeconomic deprivation. The high-risk group tended to be "chaotic" and "enmeshed" (FACES); to include more stepparents; to be more punishing and less supportive (CPBD); and, to be more stressed by life changes (A-FILE). Adolescents in the high-risk families were characterized by significantly more developmental problems (both internalizing and externalizing), and the number of such problems correlated significantly with the risk for destructive parent-child relations. The findings support the view that as systems, high-risk families do not function as well as low-risk families. (Author/JAC)