The decision to maintain a severely mentally retarded child in the home or seek out-of-home placement is regarded as one aspect of family adaptation. As such, the decision is affected by numerous child-related stressors, preexistent family resources, and new sources of support. In the current study, parents with severely mentally retarded children still living at home were surveyed with regard to these variables and their plans for future child placement. Multiple regression analyses revealed that child-related stressors were negatively related to parents' plans for keeping the child at home until age 21 and positively related to plans for placing the child outside the home before age 21. Families with high levels of internal resources were more apt to report plans for keeping the child at home indefinitely. Degree of external resource use was related to plans to maintain the child at home until age 21, over-and-above both child-related stressors and family resources. Specific kinds of external resources were examined and ranked ordered with regard to their usefulness to parents in maintaining their child in the home.