The second of two volumes, this book contains 21 studies of children and families. Selections, grouped into three sections, are intended to provide a representative sample of current research, including case studies and less formal reports. The first section reports on families in distress. Articles focus on adults who were antisocial children, preschool intervention for children at risk, runaways, psychosomatic aspects of diabetes in children, physical violence in families, child abuse, and helping abused children and their parents. The second section discusses mental illness and the family. The mentally ill at home, heredity and mental illness, poor family communication and schizophrenia, detection and prevention of childhood depression, autism and other disorders of childhood, and basic training for parents of psychotic children are explored. The third section indicates ways of strengthening the family. Topics include improving parent skills, training foster parents, developing a sense of competence in children, social learning techniques for parents of difficult children, games that help solve life problems, fortifying family ties, and families and public policy. The volume concludes with an abstract for every article in this volume and the first volume. (Author/RH)