Love and Relationship

Health Problems: Seeing their parents fight regularly may make them feel anxious, depressed and helpless. As a result, such children may stop eating or over-eat. They could suffer from a headache/stomach ache. They may even have trouble falling off to sleep at night. All of these could make the child lose weight or in some cases gain weight due to overeating. Such children may also suffer from several mental health problems or behavioural issues.

Decreased cognitive performance: A 2013 study published in Child Development found that the stress associated with living in a high-conflict home may impair a child’s cognitive performance. Researchers found that when parents fought often, kids had more difficulty regulating their attention and emotions. Their ability to rapidly solve problems and quickly see patterns in new information was also compromised.

Aggression and behavioural problems : Effects of fighting parents can be disastrous. Children after seeing their parents fighting and arguing start believing that that is the way to solve problems. Thus, they try to resolve their issues too, in the same way with everyone which results in failed relationships.

 Parental conflict has been linked to increased aggression, delinquency, and conduct problems in children. Additionally, children are more likely to have social problems and increased difficulty adjusting to school.


Low Self Esteem: Mixed feelings of shame, guilt, unworthiness, helplessness, and shame can take a toll on the child’s mental health. As a result, the child’s self-esteem suffers, and he is a failure in his future relationships, be it personal or professional.



Destructive disagreement tactics that could have a negative impact on children include:

Name-calling
Insults
Threats of abandonment (such as threatening to leave the house or divorce)
Any form of physical aggression (including throwing things or punching things in anger)
Walking out or withdrawing from the argument
Capitulation (giving into the other parent when there’s not really a solution)


If your disagreement grows disrespectful, you might take these steps to address the situation with your kids:

Discuss the fight. Although you don’t have to get into specifics about what you and your spouse were disagreeing about, hold a family meeting to say something like, “Daddy and I had an argument the other night that got out of hand. We didn’t have the same opinion on something that was important to both of us, but it was wrong for us to fight like that.”
Reassure the children that it was just an argument and not indicative of bigger problems. Reassure them that you still love each other and that you’re not going to get divorced (assuming, of course, that it’s a true statement).
Finish it up by making sure the children understand that you’re still a strong family. Explain that arguments happen sometimes and people can lose their tempers. However, you all love each other, despite your disagreements.