An application initiates a parent process (102) to begin executing the application. The parent process (102) creates a child process (104) to execute the application. The parent monitors the death of the child process using inter-process communications (118). The child process monitors the parent process using polling (114, 116). If the parent process detects the death of the child, the parent process creates another child to continue the processing of the dead child. If the child process detects the death of the parent process (119), the child creates another child process (120) to execute the application it previously executed. The original child, now a parent, monitors the child process via inter-process communication (128). The new child monitors the parent using polling (124, 126)