The coping reactions of parents of 58 children exhibiting signs of maladjustment upon entering elementary school and changes in adjustment to school were evaluated during the first two school years. The relationship between coping and adjustment was evaluated by measuring both synchronous and cross-lagged correlations. As the children's adjustment worsened during the first grade, mothers increased their coping activity, but their efforts did not contribute to an improved adjustment. An adaptive and cohesive family pattern, related to a subsequent improvement in adjustment to school, was composed of variables measuring fathers' coping activities, mothers' positive attempts to stimulate the fathers' coping behaviors, parental support of the children and their co-operation to co-ordinate coping strategies.

‘Stuckness’ in the live supervision of family therapy trainees can be used creatively to affect their style and expand their use of self in therapy. Supervisors, after clarifying the contract with their trainees, need to examine how their therapeutic style is constrained by personal qualities. These personal constraints may be related to generic difficulties in their personal, professional and cultural context. These include anxieties generated by the situation oflive supervision, or learning to increase stress to a greater level than the trainees learned to tolerate in their families of origin. Observing an impasse that is influenced by these qualities, the supervisor, who also analyses his or her part in the process, can change the supervisory relationship.

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