One technique of coping with interparental violence was to attempt to reduce the violence by intervening to resolve conflicts between their parents, suggesting nonviolent ways to deal with their problems. Youths who felt successful in reducing interparental violence increased their confidence that they could manage their own lives and that of their families in accordance with personal norms for behavior. On the other hand, youth who were not able to influence their parents and reduce violence in the home developed a feeling of powerlessness and helplessness within the family, leading them to seek identities forged in the world outside the home through peer interactions. Their coping behaviors tended to take a positive turn when they aspired to develop a normative nonviolent identity either by successfully intervening in interparental violence in the home or pursuing normative nonviolent interactions outside the home. Such coping leads youth to develop a feeling of competence in being able to tolerate and manage confusion in a way that reduces their anxiety and maintains their values. Conversely, when youth were unable to influence their parents or peers in ways that reduced their anxiety and fears, they tended to enter mental states of despair and helplessness that placed them at risk for out-of-control behaviors. The 10 boys and 11 girls participated in semistructured interviews at some point between July 1998 and November 1999. The thematic content of the interviews was performed using cross-case analysis, which involved identifying and coding themes across interviews. 72 references