Three hundred sixty-three school-aged children from maritally violent and nonviolent familieswere interviewed about their friendship networks, frequency of social contact, the interpersonalquality of their friendships, and hostile attributional biases. Mothers answered items from theChild Behavior Checklist about peer conflict. Children did not differ on the number of friends theyclaimed or their frequency of contact with peers. However, children exposed to marital violencereported feeling more lonely and having more conflict with a close friend. Their mothers alsoreported them as having more problems with peers. In addition, children with punitive mothershad more conflict with a best friend. Residing in a shelter added further to children'sfeelings of loneliness, with one third having no best friend. Children's attributional biaseswere unrelated to the quality of their peer relations or any other index of peer functioning. Resultsare discussed in terms of an attachment framework. Findings confirm that it is important toexamine the quality of relationships to determine how children at risk fare in their social lives.