Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2013 in the subject Psychology - Social Psychology, grade: B, ( Atlantic International University ) (Social Sciences), course: Social Psychology, language: English, abstract: Numerous studies have come with an assumption that children raised in a conflict, dysfunctional and diverse family contexts show inconsistent forms of results that transverse various developmental domains. Besides research also documented that different family factors such as parents respond to child’s distress, family emotional environment, family income and inter-maternal effectiveness explained children’s emotion and socialization. The paper critically assessed and analyzed research literature on the relative cross over effects of the interactions, i.e. couple relation, family instability and income on a child’s behavioral functioning. The paper addressed why marital quality is evenly conceived as a relationship contentment and functioning and further look at how couple relation, family instability and income are linked with undesirable child’s behaviour. Finally, findings revealed that children experiences family instability and nurtured in a poor family background are linked to emotional and behavioral problems in teenage years.