Coping with family transitions: winners, losers, and survivors

This article presents the results of a longitudinal study of the effects of divorce and remarriage on children's adjustment. It was found that individual characteristics, such as children's temperament, family relations, and extrafamilial factors, played an important role in exacerbating or buffering children from negative consequences associated with their parents' marital transitions. Although boys in divorced families and children in remarried families showed more problems in adjustment than did children in nondivorced families, some also showed remarkable resiliency in the face of multiple life stressors.