This research targeted adolescents and aimed at investigating from the point of view of a child's recognition into the relevance between a marital relationship or functional conditions of a family system and uneasiness or body symptoms of children.

　　A questionnaire survey was conducted on 234 high school students, and analyzed 218 students (68 males, 150 females, average age 16.7).

　　As for the relevance between a marital relationship and functional conditions of a family system, there is a positive correlation among affectionate parents, conflict settlement and evaluation or cohesion to a family, communication in a family, flexibility of a family system, and rules in a family. As for the relevance between a marital relationship or functional conditions of a family system and a child’s uneasiness, there is a negative correlation between the uneasiness and affection in a couple or conflict settlement. Also there is a negative correlation between the uneasiness and evaluation or cohesion to a family, communication in a family, or flexibility of a family system, and is not a correlation between the uneasiness and rules in a family. Moreover there is a positive correlation between uneasiness and body symptoms.

　　As a result of the study of cause and the effects of relationships, it becomes clear that a marital relationship influences indirectly children’s uneasiness through functional conditions of a family system.

　　The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among Japanese mothers' parenting skills towards early adolescents, adolescents' sense of mutual trust, and psychological adjustment. Parenting skills is defined here as “mothers’ actions for constructing and maintaining good relations with their early adolescent children.” A parenting scale is composed of three subscales: Morality skill (9 items), Self-esteem skill (8 items), and Understanding-interest skill (6 items). The scale for the sense of mutual trust in the mother-adolescent relationship is defined here as “mother and child mutually and sincerely understanding each other, and their relationship is based on a sense of trust and security.” Items were collected from descriptions provided by 3 graduate students and 2 psychologists. They examined the validity of the content of the questionnaire, and a 12-item “Adolescents’ Sense of Mutual Trust Scale” was developed. The result of this principal component analysis showed a composition of 10 items.

　　Antecedent research and the gender difference of parenting skills will reveal the gender differences of this study. This study analyzed the gender distinction of the correlation analysis and the multiple regression analysis. As a result, “adolescents’ sense of mutual trust” significantly predicted for “maladjustment,” and “self-esteem” towards only males. “Understanding-interest skill” significantly predicted for “adolescents’ sense of mutual trust,” and “self-esteem skill” significantly predicted for “adolescents’ sense of mutual trust” and “self-esteem” towards only females.

　　The purposes of this study were (1) to examine the strength of the desire for individual-oriented self of full-time housewives in the child-caring period, and (2) to analyze the relationship between desire on the one hand, what made them decide to be full-time housewives, and self-esteem on the other hand. A questionnaire was used for 345 full-time housewives caring for children. The results were as follows: (1) factor analysis extracted five factors, namely, ① social accomplishment and evaluation, ② personal relations, ③ hobby and interest, ④ way of life not as a mother and wife but as herself, and ⑤ working; (2) full-time housewives in the child-caring period desired four factors except for the 4th factor, “way of life not as a mother and wife but as myself ”; (3) what made them decide to be full-time housewives was significantly related to the 1st factor “social accomplishment and evaluation” and the 5th factor “working”, i.e., those women retired because of the family circumstances desired “social accomplishment and evaluation “ and “working” more strongly than those retired due to their own circumstances; (4) the strength of desire for individual-oriented self was significantly related to their self-esteem: the lower self-esteem group showed a strong desire for individual-oriented self.

　　Maltreatment or child abuse has been a social problem in Japan. Many politics have been introduced but not yet effective enough to prevent or investigate maltreatment. The relation between depression and parenting has long been discussed and risk factors of depression have been investigated. We want to find out when and which risk factor effects depression or maltreatment and make it clear when and what intervention is needed. This study has longitudinally evaluated the relationships between postnatal depression and maltreatment and related variables such as marital relationship, affection toward infants over the course of the first postpartum year. 522 mothers who admitted to join this survey have been received the questionnaire 5 times, pregnancy, 5 weeks, 3, 6, 12 months postpartum by mail. Depression and marital relationship decrease after birth, negative affection toward infants increased 3 months after birth. To examine the mutual relationships of factors along with time line, we used cross-lagged correlation analysis. It revealed that negative affection toward infants were significantly and interactively related to maltreatment. Depression and marital relationship were significantly related to negative affection toward infants and maltreatment. As a result of this survey, we submitted conceptual model and proposed the 2 point of view of intervention of maltreatment. One point was to prevention or treatment of mothers' depression and another was to improve or to enhance marital relationship.