Forty-six mothers of children with cancer completed self-report questionnaires as part of an assessment of the relationship between their coping processes and their adjustment to their child's illness, using a standardized measure of current psychological adjustment. The relationship of their adjustment to several demographic variables, such as age and sex of the child, and to several additional factors, including communication and the state of the child's disease, also were examined. As predicted, emotion-focused coping was positively related to maternal maladjustment, and problem-focused coping was not related to the mothers' adjustment, nor were communication, disease stage, and demographic variables, except race. A multiple regression equation consisting of emotion-focused coping, socioeconomic status, and problem-focused coping accounted for 24 percent of the variance in maternal adjustment. A comparison of the participants and the nonparticipants revealed only one difference: the children of nonparticipants were in more life-threatening stages of the disease than were the children of participants.