SPECIAL FROM Grandparents.com
Some families believe they should never fight “in front of the kids.” Others could care less, letting loose with stinging invectives whenever a disagreement erupts. It turns out that neither style of conflict resolution is very good for children’s emotional development.
“Conflict and anger are not bad,” says Patrick T. Davies, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, and co-author with E. Mark Cummings, of Martial Conflict and Children: An Emotional Security Perspective. “It’s OK to be angry, as long as it’s managed in a constructive way and the parents are making some progress toward resolution. In those cases, there’s value to anger, and there’s meaning in it. It’s good when kids see parents manage that and work together as a team to increase or maintain family harmony.”
But when families fight in an unpredictable way—when conflict arises out of seemingly innocent mistakes or small disagreements—kids suffer. Name-calling, door slamming, stony silence, one-upmanship, or aggressive physical actions threaten kids security, can have lasting and serious effects, and can color the whole family’s dynamic.
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Kids who grow up around fighting tend to learn destructive tactics when it comes to resolving conflict in their own lives, Davies says. So before you explode at your spouse, realize that he or she is not the only one hearing it.
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