Parental Conflicts and Their Negative Effect on Children
There is a saying that sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt you. This isn't true. Psychological and emotional abuse at a young age can result in long-lasting negative effects into adulthood.
Source, pixabay
Many people think that only physical abuse needs to be of concern. Research published in March 2018 by the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships demonstrates the negative effects of parental conflicts on the emotional processing of children. Children can become over vigilant, anxious and vulnerable to distorting neutral human interactions, leading to an inability to accurately read the emotions of other and to trust others. This results in an interpersonal adult life that is off-balance.
"The message is clear: even low-level adversity like parental conflict isn't good for kids" - Alice Schermerhorn, author of the study
99 children aged 9 to 11 were shown 90 photos of actors simulating emotional expressions as a couple (as preants). Photos were of the couples engaging in displays of being happy, neutral or angry. The children had to place these images into their respective emotional categories. They were also assessed on how much parental conflict they experienced at home.
Credit: Brian Jenkins
Children that had low levels of conflict at home consistently categorized photos accurately, but those from homes with high levels of conflict are unable to accurately identify the neutral expression, categorizing them as either angry or happy, or didn't know where to put them.
According to the study, the inaccuracy attributed to high-level conflicting homes could be due to hypervigilance or that neutral interactions were less significant compared to the more obvious expressions of happiness or anger.
Perceptions of conflict as a threat can lead children to be more vigilant towards signs of trouble, understanding which expressions are troubling (angry) and which are not (happy), but being unable to know where to place less salient neutral expressions in terms of a threat or no-threat. Expressions on one side of the polarity or the other, anger vs. happiness, can signal to children that their parents are unavailable and cause them to retreat, or signal that they are available and will be have welcoming positive interactions.
Some children were more shy than others, and this characteristic demonstrated an inability to identify neutral poses, despite not being from high conflict homes. Even if the level of conflict was lower at home, they were more prone to being negatively affected by parental conflict. Shyness and feeling threatened by parental conflict lead to high levels of inaccurately identifying neutral expressions.
Even when there is no conflict directed at children specifically, experiencing conflict matters in child development.
Developing hyper-vigilance regarding interactions with others means someone will be more sensitive to potential threats, demonstrating exaggerated intensity and being more defensive as well as having increased level of anxiety. They will be on the lookout for threats from their environment and be prone to intense responses from stimulus.
Children who are less able to read neutral interactions can have a gap in perception of expressions which damage their experiences with others, like friends, peers, teachers, and future romantic partners as they get older.
Conflict is part of life. There is little chance of avoiding it. How we deal with conflict matters though, and how we deal with conflict can stem from childhood experience or trauma that reverberate into our adult life for years to come. As parents, we need to be responsible about how we engage in conflict, and help children understand that arguing doesn't mean parents don't care about each other. It helps when arguing is done calmly, without intense emotional outbursts. It's easier to work things out that way.
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
References:
- Parental Conflict Can Cause Lasting Emotional Damage to Kids
- Study: Parental conflict can do lasting damage to kids
Alice C. Schermerhorn. Associations of child emotion recognition with interparental conflict and shy child temperament traits. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 2018; 026540751876260 DOI: 10.1177/0265407518762606 - Hypervigilance
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You're right @krnel ... Most parents know what it is like to have a discussion like this. As a parent, I have a responsibility to ensure the well-being of my children - and that includes how to interact with my partner (wife).
While children react to conflict or strong arguments from their father in different ways, they are likely to experience fear, worry and anger. If the conflict is extremely intense, they may have emotional trauma, depression and stress, no one feels safe in the middle of an unresolved conflict, especially when the fight is over children, money, sex, separation etc. Their children may feel that it is their fault. In some cases, conflict between parents can have long-term consequences for children. For example, it can negatively affect your ability to form a healthy and trusting relationship with your future partners in the future.
Yeah, a good point is that conflicts need to be resolved, or else they just linger in the background, building up as more conflicts fester and build up... then it's a huge mountain of unresolved things that implode :/
Parents should always reinforce that nothing is their fault with respect to parents arguing. Thanks for the feedback.
It is very true. Growing up in a broken family carries an emotional load that is too intense. My nephew is proof of this, at age 7 he has been in the middle of the discussions of my brother and his ex and that affects him, for example he knows there are things that it is better not to tell his father what he did with his mother and vice versa because he knows that this can generate friction between the parties. Hopefully we were more mature and we know how to take our relationships, for us and above all for the wellbeing of our children.
Yup, kids are smart and can pick on what not to say in order to avoid negative reactions from parents :/
Let's all be careful on how we treat our children. Children are very much capable of modelling and how we treat them can definitely influence their future behaviors and how they also treat others. Emotional abuse has the same impact wity physical abuse. Words can hurt twice as much as physical injuries.
Yup, words can hurt and scar for way longer. It's silly how macho types try to tell people words can't hurt you, they seem to have little understanding of psychology...
True ! @krnel, it is those people that pollutes the minds of everybody. Accepting our flaws and weaknesses are healthy for us,we just need to accept it. Getting hurt is part of growing up since it is inevitable but I still think that as adults we can definitely make a difference. We can treat our kids well so that when they grow up they will also be doing the same.
permission, just little comment. conflict within the family is a natural thing. memenage conflicts that are secret. we are an example for our children. So it's perfectly natural if they do what they see.
I myself feel how to take care of 2 boys and 1 girl.
hope this be an inspiration for me.
thanks for this excellent post
regards
Conflict is part of life. How you deal with conflict matters. There can be less negative emotional mayhem, and it will be fine.
A child learns most from his or her family.Any kinds of violence or quarrel creates big impact on his mind.You said it right that quarrel will happen but how we behave in front of the child is very crucial .To make a better future for the kids we should think deeply about this.
Yeah, conflict can be done with less emotional haywire reactions, and it will not be an issue.
Nowadays many parents divorced which can influence the life of children. Great post
All parents' problems should be resolved away from the children should keep the relationship in front of them a love relationship
A very special article
Decentralize parenting
children in principle have significant learning by their models, that is, everything they see is copied and made part of if, if they are constantly exposed to physical or verbal conflicts on the part of their parents, this will determine their behavior
Okay i will give you three tips: from @pushup2 your best choice steemer
Be concise. (If you do not know how to English, do not worry, try it as easy.) Be consistent. (Once a day or three times a week, it does not matter, keep A schedule and keep it!) Be yourself. (Do not copy other people's photos, drawings, writings, music. Create your own art!)
That's about it. I can not think of other things right from the top of my head, but I belive these tips work. One thing you can not do if you want to success, is to give up. You must believe in what you do, and you want to keep it
I've been on Steam for over a year now, and I think the recent last year that I've been doing at least 1 photo post every day has finally paid off. So I'll add this 4th, extra bonus point to the list:
Persevere: You can do it! Do not give up! @pushup2