Ever wonder how fighting in front of your kids impacts them?  You’re worried whether you should or shouldn’t fight in them.  Ashley Carter Youngblood, a marriage and family therapist, and guest blogger offers some advice about fighting in front of your kids.

Fighting in front of your kids

Kids are smart. They learn quickly through what they observe. We all know that. But, parents often forget that, when they fight with their partner, kids learn those behaviors, too.

Much of what we know about “healthy fighting” comes from research from Dr. John Gottman. He and his associates at The Gottman Institute have been doing research on couples since the 1970s. And, their research has recently expanded to include how to apply the techniques learned about effective communication between couples to healthy parenting skills.

There are typically two schools of thought about fighting infant of your kids. The first is the recommendation to always be a united front in front of your kids. The motto here may be “don’t let them see you sweat”. Resolve the conflict behind closed doors. The second theory is that parents should be able to disagree openly in front of their kids in order to demonstrate the realities of life and to (hopefully!) demonstrate positive conflict skills.

Gottman’s research suggests that a location somewhere in the middle of these two approaches is most helpful. Having emotional knock-down drag-out fights in front of kids is not only not helpful, it is damaging to children’s development. Again, kids are smart. They pick up on their parents’ emotions. Even when you think they miss that eye roll, deep sigh, or the name you just called your partner, they are affected.

A set of 50 couples who had 3-month old infants were studied by the Gottmans. With parental fighting, the children had a significantly lower levels of concentration, joy, and the ability to be soothed. The study illustrated the damage fighting in front of kids can have. But, that doesn’t mean that you should hide your emotions, either.

Fighting in front of your kids – Do’s

Having a back and forth argument that is not productive in front of kids is not… well, productive. Instead, you can follow The Gottman’s tips about how to resolve a conflict with gentleness. The key is to remain need-based and emotion-focused.

A helpful structure in these moments of conflict with your partner is to use the following structure “I feel _____  about _____. I need _____.” This may sound something like “I feel frustrated about getting a call from the school about how the kids weren’t picked up on time again. I need verbal confirmation of pickup times when I share them so I know that I am heard.” Because, chances are, the other partner has a different perspective on the situation, that partner can respond with something like “I feel misunderstood about why the kids weren’t picked up from school on time. I need to have a physical schedule where things are written down so that I can avoid mistakes.” Ideally, this structure can be repeatedly used back and forth until increased clarity and a solid plan for improvement is made that is agreed upon by both parties (e.g. they will create a mutual calendar so each partner can reference the correct days and times for pick-up at their leisure).

Using a structure like this avoids the qualities (what they call the “4 Horsemen”) that the Gottmans have found are damaging to relationships.

Fighting in front of your kids – Dont’s

These 4 Horsemen are:

• criticism
• contempt
• defensiveness
• stonewalling (the “cold shoulder”).

So, when you engage in conflict in front of your kids, do so gently and while using “I statements” instead of using “You statements” that come across as blaming and trigger defensiveness. Then it is much easier to avoid the 4 Horsemen and engage in more productive conflict.

Perhaps most importantly, when you have made a mistake, make sure your kids witness what it is like for you to take responsibility of that and make a repair with your partner. Resolution, as the article linked to above, is understood to be a “wonder drug” for children. It is essential for kids to understand that healthy resolution is possible, even after a conflict where you weren’t on your best behavior.

Take away: When fighting in front of your kids

Conflict is not bad in itself. It is a reality of relationships. However, parents need to consider both how their conflict affects their children and also how those moments, and the repairs that hopefully follow them, are opportunities to raise emotionally-intelligent kids.

Ashley Carter Youngblood is both a limited licensed clinical social worker and marriage and family therapist at Inner Peace Counseling who has been in the field since 2007. She offers counseling in Kalamazoo, Portage, Mattawan, Battle Creek, Paw Paw, and the surrounding areas of Southwest Michigan and is Level 2 Trained in Gottman Method Couples’ Therapy. Her specialties include anxiety, addictions/substance abuse, trauma, depression, holistic healing, counseling for women, relationship issues, mindfulness, and spiritual/cultural issues.