2245: How To Make a Fight With Your Partner Into a Positive Learning Experience for Your Child by Dr. Laura Markham

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[00:00:13] and you can combine them with the note assistant in a few key points or make them interlink. Super practical if you want to shine with clear notes later. Galaxy AI is here. Learn more about the new Galaxy Z Fold 6 on samsung.de. This is Optimal Relationships Daily episode 2245.

[00:00:34] How To Make a Fight With Your Partner Into a Positive Learning Experience for Your Child by Dr. Laura Markham of PeacefulParentHappyKids.com. Hello everybody and welcome to our parenting leg of the week here on Optimal Relationships Daily. I'm Greg Audino and today and tomorrow I'll be sharing articles

[00:00:52] for you that focus on parenting tips and research specifically. Today's comes from psychologist Dr. Laura Markham who writes exclusively about the parent-child relationship. So let's hear what she's got for us this time as we optimize your life.

[00:01:10] How To Make a Fight With Your Partner Into a Positive Learning Experience for Your Child by Dr. Laura Markham of PeacefulParentHappyKids.com. Dr. Laura, in your article, How to Do Damage Control When You Fight in Front of Your Kids,

[00:01:25] you seem to recommend that parents not fight in front of their children. It makes the children anxious, but I read that fighting is fine as long as you make up afterward and the kids see that.

[00:01:36] To this question, I say, it sounds like you're referring to the research by Mark Cummings, reported in Poe Bronson's book, Nurture Shock. Bronson reports that as long as parents made up with each other afterwards, the children easily recovered from the incident. But as Cummings, the researcher, stressed,

[00:01:54] the parents were disagreeing, not yelling in these scripted encounters. So there were no raised voices, insults, or disrespect. By contrast, when parents' fights include yelling or disrespect, it does make children anxious. And in fact, previous studies by Cummings have established that such fights,

[00:02:13] especially when repeated, are damaging to kids. In this more hopeful research, Cummings wanted to find out whether plain old everyday conflict, just ordinary non-yelling disagreement, was also a problem. So, he scripted encounters in which the parents had a difference of opinion, but did not yell at each other.

[00:02:32] As it turned out, even these disagreements were very upsetting to the children who witnessed them. So yes, even non-yelling disagreements where parents are in conflict are hard on kids. Happily though, and this is the hopeful part, when the children also saw the adults resolving the argument with affection,

[00:02:51] the kids were fine afterwards. In fact, I think it teaches children important lessons to see parents disagree and make a repair. So, the takeaway is that any time you have any disagreement with your partner in front of your child,

[00:03:04] even without yelling, it's essential that you affectionately and explicitly repair the relationship. The following scenarios of parents fighting are actually terrific modeling for your child. Number one. One parent snaps at the other, then immediately course corrects. I'm so sorry. I'm just feeling stressed. Can we try that over?

[00:03:26] What I meant to say was… Kids learn from this modeling that anyone can get angry, but that we can take responsibility for our own emotions, apologize and reconnect. You'll see your child start to apologize and course correct too.

[00:03:42] Number two. Parents work through a difference of opinion without getting triggered and raising their voices. For instance, if you and your partner have a good-natured discussion about who should clean the toilet

[00:03:53] or whether to buy a new car, your child learns that humans who live together can have different needs and opinions, listen to each other and work toward a win-win decision, all respectfully and with affection.

[00:04:06] Number three. Parents notice that they have a conflict brewing and agree to discuss it later. Hopefully, this happens before there's any yelling, or you'll be modeling yelling. And hopefully, you can close the interaction with a big public hug.

[00:04:21] If you're too mad, first take some space to calm down and then prioritize the hug in front of your child with a family mantra like, it's okay to get mad. You can be mad at someone and still love them at the same time.

[00:04:35] In our family, we always work things out. This takes maturity, but it models self-regulation and repair, and it's crucial to restoring your child's sense of safety. Bottom line. All couples have disagreements, but adult fierceness is always scary to kids.

[00:04:53] Children will recover if we handle our disagreements with respect and goodwill, looking for solutions instead of blame. If we yell or express disrespect, it's an emotional risk factor for children, and simply making up in front of the child does not ameliorate the negative effects.

[00:05:10] And of course, respect and refraining from yelling is best for our partnerships too. Anger is a message to us about what we need. There's always a way to ask for what we need without attacking the other person.

[00:05:22] It's never appropriate to dump anger on another person in front of your kids or not. Not easy to do? You're right. Most of us never learned how to manage our own emotions, express our needs without attacking, and handle conflict in a healthy way.

[00:05:37] But every couple can learn healthy conflict resolution, and you can repair things with your children if you've been fighting in front of them. You just listened to the post titled, How to Make a Fight with Your Partner into a Positive Learning Experience for Your Child,

[00:05:56] by Dr. Laura Markham of PeacefulParentHappyKids.com. And I'll be right back with my commentary. And another really informative post, courtesy of Dr. Laura, which we thank her for. I love that she's touched upon this subject here today.

[00:06:11] It's really of vital importance and yet another reflection of how damaging it can be to those around us if we've not learned how to communicate and empathize with others. Not to mention an initial look at how generational trauma might be passed on.

[00:06:26] This reminds me of a study I once heard about. I believe it was done out of Harvard, but admittedly, I don't remember exactly how it was conducted. What I do remember is that the data the researchers collected basically suggested

[00:06:39] that it is more damaging to a child for them to hear parents speak ill of one another than it is for a child to hear their parents speak ill of the child themselves. So in theory, if a boy hears his father tell his mother she's worthless,

[00:06:56] it inflicts more pain upon the boy than if he hears his dad tell him that he, he being the boy, is worthless. I'm sure there are a lot of variables to consider and certain terminology would be more harmful to some more than others.

[00:07:10] But still something worth keeping in mind for parents. But anyway, that is going to bring us to the end for today everybody. As always, I thank you so much for being here and making another episode possible. I hope you took something from this post.

[00:07:23] And do remember there's another parenting post coming up tomorrow. So be sure to tune in again for that, where your optimal life awaits.