This study sets out to investigate the relationship between family configurations and representations for children attending a public school in the city of Recife. We used two instruments: the Picture Story-telling Test (DF-E, in Portuguese), applied to 15% of the 6 -11 year-old children of the morning class of that school, and the Genogram Interview undertaken with one of the children s parents or an adult who assumes this role towards them. The results of the DF-E show that the predominant type of representation is the nuclear one (50%), followed by the extended family model (38%), single-parent (6%) and wider family [including nonrelatives], (6%). The results of the Genogram show various types of family configurations. The nuclear one (40,9%) is predominant, followed by the extended family (24.5%), the reconstructed family (16.3%), singleparent (14.3%), and that wider family [including non-relatives], (4.1%). We report that there is a correspondence between the predominant forms of representation and the family configurations. However, there are more types of family configurations than the children manage to represent.