Both claims-making and typification have generally been unfocused in the past. Moreover, popular and academic research and organizational attention to child homicide have been minimal. These efforts have also been hampered by difficulties faced by social control agencies in defining, identifying, and reacting to child homicide. Such difficulties occur for three primary reasons: (1) child homicide perpetrators are often parents or guardians; (2) child homicide has varying patterns related to motivation, method, and cause of death and varying perpetrators associated with children's developmental stages; and (3) boundaries of the child homicide issue have been captured by a variety of claims-makers and typifiers who are primarily interested in promoting other social issues. The importance of medical, legal, and welfare responses to child homicide is discussed, and claims-making and typification activities are compared for child abuse and child homicide. 82 references and 1 table