The chapter examines the developmental psychopathology perspective and related approaches as important directions toward greater understanding of the processes that mediate the impact of marital conflict on children. It reviews the literature on children's stress and coping with marital conflict and examines the developmental psychopathology perspective as a useful way to conceptualize process and its application to the study of marital conflict effects on children, including the identification of stress, resilience, and compensatory and protective factors. The chapter suggests a family-wide view of vulnerability and protective factors based on the emotional security theory. An interesting finding of this chapter is that some forms of marital conflict are highly destructive, increasing children's risk for developing psychopathology, whereas other forms of marital conflict buffer or even help children, thereby reducing that risk. Figures, table, references