Parental conflicts have more influence on us than we think
PARENTAL CONFLICTS AFFECTS BEHAVIOUR
It's common to see parents fighting or arguing with one another. Though it is our parents who would be fighting, we(children) would equally get affected by it. When conflicts occur in our house, we would go through a variety of feelings like sadness, anger, shame, fear and much more. Actually, the conflicts have more influence on us than we think.
Here, in this chapter, we would see how and when the normal fights and arguments turn into attacking weapon and how we can learn to pull through such situations.
WHEN CONFLICTS STARTS TO THREATEN BEHAVIOUR?
We know that there can be no relationships without disagreements and conflicts. When people are together, its natural to get into fights and misunderstandings and eventually they get out of it positively or negatively. When we children witness such conflicts they are only two ways we can process it.
The first is when our parents fight neatly and constructively and solve the problems unitedly, we get to learn: how to handle such situations. Later in our lives, we could handle such situations positively. It can be considered as a healthy exposure to handling problems.
2. The second way is when our parents fight in an unhealthy way by verbally or physically abusing one another frequently, we unconsciously get threatened by it. This is when fights pave way to threats and affect our behaviour.
HOW DO CONFLICTS THREATEN BEHAVIOUR?
Some researchers say that when as young as six months old children get distressed when their parents fight. They feel scared, anxious, sad and angry. They have a high chance of suffering from health problems like disturbed sleep, struggle to find focus and perform well academically.
Children of high conflicted parents have more chance to own poor interpersonal skills, social skills and problem-solving skills.
Those children perceive the world as well as themselves negatively and hence get trust issues and find it hard to have good relationships with others.
Sometimes, when it is hard to pull through hard situations, the daughters and sons of the house blame themselves or in some cases, they find some other unhealthy ways to cope up with the situations.
They might express their feelings externally in the form of aggression, not obeying anyone, hurting themselves and others, damaging things.
While some hurt internally by getting into depression, anxiety.
HOW TO SURVIVE PARENTAL CONFLICTS?
Try to be in their (parent's) shoes and understand why they are behaving a certain way.
Remind yourselves that your parents were once a kid and now they are learning to be parents.
Sometimes, they are not aware of how their fights are affecting you So tell them how it affects you to make them understand but not to make them feel guilty.
The worst time to express how you feel because of the conflict is when they are in the middle of a fight. It is like adding fuel to the fire. Tell them when they are in a relaxed state. They care for you more. If they know that it's affecting you, they will do their best not to harm you in any way.
Remember, its better to pour out what's bothering inside and resolve conflicts instead of bottling up emotions. It's healthy (it's okay ) when your parents fight.