Will arguing in front of my child cause them harm?

You have enough people in your life . You have enough people in your life probably telling you how to do this .

What I want to do is share the science with you through the research studies that I read , through the researchers that I am in touch with , or the clinicians and the experts , so that you can take all this information and do what is best for your family and for your kids and for yourself , because , as you know , a big part here of curious neuron is that you

matter and that you are the most important part of all of this , because if you are not well , it will be much harder for you to take care of your child .

So today I want to talk about a question that a parent asked me and they asked you know it was about fighting in front of their kids and they said is fighting or arguing in front of my child , damaging to them . So first , that word damaging not necessarily , but there can be things that can have a long-term impact on your child .

So I would change that word to you know , is there anything that we're doing while we argue that could have a long-term impact on our child ? The answer is yes , there are things . So before we jump into things , I'd like to take a moment to thank the Ten and Bomb Open Science Institute for supporting the curious neuron podcast .

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Will arguing in front of your child damage your child , as the question came to me or will it have long-term impact ? So there's a few things that I want parents to be aware of .

When it comes to arguing or having arguments in front of your child , it's not necessarily a bad thing , and I'm going to have a podcast episode where I interview Dr Tracey Daglish , and she has a book coming out called I Didn't Sign Up for this . I've read it , I love it and I think it's a great resource for parents .

We are going to have a more in-depth discussion about arguing and conflict in front of kids , but for today , I want to talk about the science behind it and the impact on our kids .

So not only advice about the arguing , but really the impact on the child , and I do think and she agreed as well that arguing is in front of our child is important because it is part of a healthy relationship , and what we do want to be mindful of are a few things that can impact the child and their relationship with you as well , and their well-being ,

depending on what's going on in front of them . So here are three things that I believe every parent should be aware of when they are having an argument in front of their child . Number one is the yelling loud enough that it is causing your child stress . So this is mostly for younger kids .

I've heard parents say that arguing in front of a baby doesn't really matter because they don't understand what's happening . Not necessarily true .

There are studies that have shown and I'm going to put the links to these studies in the show notes that a sleeping baby can feel the stress when there's a very heated argument in the home or close enough to them that they can hear what's going on .

The loudness , the screaming , the yelling that impacts their breathing rate , that increases their heart rate , that also increases even if they are sleeping . A baby that is in front of you when you are arguing can also feel the impact and is able , at around five or six months , to catch on this anger and recognize it in the person in front of them .

In fact , at around six months of age , a baby can detect anger in a voice . So the argument that a young child just doesn't understand what's going on around them is not valid . Now , does that mean that we still can't argue in front of our kids ? No , however , I want parents to be mindful of how loud it gets and if the child is feeling stressed .

So if it's just talking back and forth and you don't agree , it is very different than yelling at each other in front of this very young baby , who might , in that moment , feel stressed because they might not feel safe . They might not understand what's going on .

They don't understand the words , but they understand the body language and the tone and the anger within the voice . If this kind of arguing is happening every once in a while , there is no impact .

But if there's a consistency and this is becoming part of their environment , where there's a lot of screaming and yelling at each other and it's very loud , this type of stress is happening every day now , or multiple times a day for that baby and that is impacting their stress system because they are on a constant fight or flight and constant alert .

That can lead to a dysregulated system , more crying , more behavioral issues . That is something that we do need to be aware of .

If we are having lots of arguments in front of our baby Again , even if they don't understand the words , it is clear through the research that they are still affected physiologically , biologically , by the arguing and loud yelling around them and , like I said before , that is , whether they are awake or sleeping .

So we do have to be mindful of what is happening around a young baby . Now let's move this type of arguing , or really intense arguing , to older kids . So there were three questions . I said I wanted to ask you and make sure that this is not happening .

So the three questions are you know , is the yelling loud enough and frequent enough that it is causing your child stress Do ? The second question is do they feel safe ? So is there abuse or violence that is happening in front of them ?

And if there is , then this is something that doesn't make them feel safe , which leads to the stress , which leads to the this regulation of their nervous system , which leads to the sort of changes in the brain that will lead to them , you know , struggling with how to cope with stress later on and so on .

So there is an impact with that kind of arguing in front of them . The third one is if you do have an older child that is able to talk back and to understand what is going on in front of them . There was this really interesting article that looked at something called triangulation .

Triangulation comes from the family systems theories , and that's Bowen , who was part of this , and triangulation you could has been described as a system process in which a child could become involved in parents conflicts , enter in their conflict interactions and might feel caught in the middle . I want you to think back to when you were , perhaps , a child .

Did this happen within your home ? Is this something that became normal to you , and did you feel that you had to take sides when this was happening ? In this particular study that I'm going to link below on triangulation , they were curious to see if there was a relationship between parent conflict and children's vulnerabilities due to triangulation .

So they looked at three distinct forms of triangulation Children's direct participation in parental disagreements , that's one . Two was children's subjective sense of feeling caught in the middle . And three was triangulation forced by parents .

So really , when a parent asks a specific question to the child that's going to force them to take sides , they are forcing them to join the conflict and to take sides . These three types of triangulation . The researchers in this study questioned if it had an impact on the child and the relationship between the child and the parents involved in the conflict .

And , as we could all predict , it did have an impact on the child and the relationship between the child and the parent and what was interesting is that there seemed to be more triangulation in the parent conflict when there was a higher level of stress with both parents and there was a higher level of stress when there was a lot more arguing .

So the more stress leads to more arguing within the family or within the parents in that home , and the more arguing that happens , the more likelihood to including that child , so triangulation being part of the parent conflict .

These researchers highlighted this idea of forced triangulation and said that this leads to feelings of helplessness , loneliness , distress in the child of having to take sides and side with a parent . It's really hard on the child's well-being and also impacts the relationship with that child and their parents .

What was also interesting is that they noticed this empathetic over-involvement of this child with their parents' needs . I've spoken about this a long time ago , but the term parentification , which is when the child has to act as a parent to sort of support and nurture their parents' needs and emotional needs .

This is what happens when you're including the child in the arguments and triangulation happens , or forced triangulation , where the child feels that they need to side and kind of nurture that parent because they clearly need your help . That leads to its own impacts and consequences when a child has to support their parent as if they were the parent .

I want to read a section in the conclusion of this study because I want to get it right . I don't want to summarize it and not really hit the points , because they've done it so beautifully here in the conclusion .

So they say we can suppose that children exposed to marital conflict and to these parents' negative perceptions are vulnerable to developing a series of feelings of guilt and blame . This is because we know that interpersonal guilt results from the conjunction of an empathetic response to someone's interpersonal distress and awareness of being the cause of that distress .

Children who live in an environment marked by parental dissatisfaction and negative parenting attributions may feel less secure and more attuned to censor from their parents Example criticism and irritability , even if the source of dissatisfaction is a parent's partner , not the child .

On the basis of these indications , we can therefore suppose that in these family contexts , children could become particularly vulnerable to feelings of blame and guilt that become a press toward reparative action such as apologizing , undoing or in some way repairing the harm that was done . I really want us to take a step back together .

If you have been having arguments or including your child in arguments , I would love for you to sit down together with your partner and either listen to this podcast episode or click any of the links that I have on the show notes below . I will also give you links to Gottman , the Gottman Institute , which is an amazing resource .

They have so much on their website . They have emails . They have like these one minute marriage something emails that have lots of advice and tips . They have books that you can read that are great for couples and , like I mentioned , dr Tracy's book is coming out in September .

I will leave the link to Amazon so that you can preorder that book if you would like . But these have been the resources that helped me . Marriage is never something that you kind of just step back and let it happen , as we do with ourselves , as we do with our children , as we do with our partners , with our friends .

It is ongoing and it's work that just never ends , but little bits of work here and there will help us . So we do need to take a step back and I don't want you to feel guilty if this has been happening . You have been doing what you know and what you can do , and you've been doing it with the tools that you have .

I just want you to take a moment to evaluate and assess what is going on within your home and how you might have been arguing up to now with your partner , and if it's something that you need to sit down and try to reevaluate together , please do so , because it's never too late .

So now I spoke about the three things that I want you to be aware of , but here are three things now that you can include in your arguing , things that you can work towards . So the first one is always trying to be respectful and not have any type of abuse , whether it's emotional , name calling , physical , just no kinds of abuse within your arguing .

Let's keep it respectful , because we are showing kids how we want to be treated and how we want them to treat others . The second thing is modeling of your emotion regulation skills as much as possible . We can never be perfect . We can never model super healthy emotion regulation skills where we manage and cope our emotions so well every single time .

That's not realistic . However , are you internalizing a lot when you're having an argument with your partner ? So are they saying a lot and you're just kind of taking it all in , or perhaps are you the opposite of that .

Are you externalizing a lot when you are having an argument which looks like lots of yelling and screaming and reacting to what your partner is saying rather than responding ? And I've said this , I have a podcast episode I believe it was last week about this . I will put it in the show notes .

But when we react , we are not taking the time to pause and to think about what that person said and how it makes us feel and what sort of thoughts it's leading to , whether it's like a thought about what they did before or how that made us thoughts about ourselves and our confidence .

All of that is coming into play when we're learning how to manage our emotions . So we need to think about emotion regulation skills and what we really want our child to learn from this . So that is the second part . The third and the most important part is repair .

This is what's important in an argument with your child and it's important in an argument with your partner . Is your child seeing you repair after this argument ?

Is your child seeing you come together as a couple and apologize or say things that you might have said , something that you didn't mean to , or you might have blown up in a way that you didn't mean to . Are they seeing you come back together and repair that ? That is the most important part of all of this . Well , no , the abuse is also very important .

All of these are important , but the repair is such an important part to what happens after . And again , this is not something that you just want to do with your partner . You also want to do this with your child .

So if you feel that you are often losing control of your emotions , it is perfectly healthy for you to come back with your child and say I'm so sorry that I yelled or that I said that I didn't mean to say that Name calling should never be part of an argument with somebody , including your child .

And if it happens , don't ignore it , apologize and come back to it and explain yourself and see how it made them feel and what thoughts it led to in your child . And the same thing happens with partners . We are all human . There isn't a rule that applies for a younger child or an older child and not an adult . Same thing , vice versa , right ?

So we need to be mindful of that . I hope that today's episode gives you enough of a framework so that you could kind of sit back and evaluate what's been happening in your home . And if you are struggling with really heated arguments or something that borders the line of abuse , please take a moment to speak to somebody .

If you can , I will put a helpline below as well . Don't ignore it and don't think it will go away , and you are important enough that you don't deserve to be treated this way .

So please take a moment to reach out to anybody that you can reach out to and , if you can , speak to somebody about it , because your child is part of this environment and there are consequences to them as well and , as I've said before in an episode , including the one with Dr Bruce Perry , connection is the most important thing .

So if your child isn't safe in your home , is there somebody outside of your home that they are safe with , that they can build a very strong connection with ?

I've spoken about my childhood where my home wasn't safe , but my grandfather was somebody who was monumental to me and he was that connection for me that led to my emotional well being being taken care of as much as it could . I still had lots of things to repair as an adult because of that childhood .

But it is never too late and you can always look for somebody outside of your home to help build that connection with your child . I hope you have a beautiful and lovely week . Thank you for tuning into the Kierstenor podcast . Please take a moment to rate it and review it if you are on Spotify or on Apple podcasts . I will see you next week . Bye .