Specificity in style of a cognitive assessment of a stressful situation was discovered: incomplete families were more internal - more responsible for stress, able to control and solve the problem by themselves, and full families were more external, they attributed responsibility for stress to other family members. Differences in the coping style were also revealed: incomplete families used internal coping, and the full - family coping. In single-parent families, adolescents often demonstrated adequate coping, which contributed to their successful solution of problems. Coping demonstrated by single mothers was not as effective, what is indicated by the more frequent worsening of the problem and the lack of reduction of stressful emotions by the end of the day.