It’s normal for parents and other family members to disagree sometimes. But when family conflicts become aggressive or hostile, they cause harm to both parents and children. This is especially true when conflicts are intense, constant, or last for a long time.
Avoiding hostility and aggression – and finding healthy ways to resolve conflicts – are the best ways to protect children from harm. But there are also steps you can take to prevent behavioural, psychological, and social issues from developing among young people if hostile family conflicts do occur.
How Does Family Conflict Harm Children?
Family conflict can affect all aspects of a young person’s life. This includes their mental and physical health, education, and parent-child relationships.
Psychological Effects
Family conflict is a risk factor for young people’s mental health issues, both during their childhood and later on in life. Numerous studies have linked family disruption and parental conflict with the development of mental health disorders, including eating disorders and borderline personality disorder.
Experiencing family conflict during adolescence also makes it more likely that young people will have mental health symptoms as young adults.
Physical Effects
Psychological distress is often experienced physically. Family conflict is linked to somatic (physical) symptoms like headaches, stomach pains, and sleeping difficulties. In family environments where conflicts are increasing, young people may experience more intense physical symptoms.
School and Education
Tensions at home affect children’s ability to relax, concentrate, and think clearly in school. This can impact their learning, creativity, and motivation.
Parent-Child Relationships
Family conflicts can affect a young person’s relationships with their parents, especially if they are drawn into conflicts. Sometimes, parents involve their children in their own relationships, conflicts, and communication – a pattern known as triangulation.
Triangulation can deeply impact a young person’s well-being, causing emotional and behavioural problems and low self-esteem.
Distinguishing Between Parental Conflict and Family Violence
It’s important to distinguish between family conflict and family violence. The key difference lies in the use of power and control. Violence between parents or other family members involves deliberate patterns of coercive behaviour that aim to control one or more family members. On the other hand, parental conflicts involve disagreements where neither parent holds power over the other or fears for their safety or well-being.
Sometimes, situations that might be described as or look like conflicts are actually forms of violence. Remember that violence doesn’t have to be physical; it can also be emotional, verbal, or psychological.
Violence should be approached very differently from conflict and has a different impact on children and young people. If you think you may be experiencing family violence, you are not alone. Services like Refuge can help to recognise the signs of violence and offer confidential support.
Should Parents Try to Hide Conflicts from Young People?
From early childhood, children are usually aware when there are hostile conflicts between parents or caregivers, even if they don’t understand exactly what is going on. Young people often have a tendency to blame themselves for their parent’s conflicts, even without a clear idea of what they may have done.
This means that it’s usually a good idea to communicate to children that you are having trouble agreeing on things and they are not at fault. Reassure them these problems aren’t their responsibility and that you love and care for them.
However, it’s important not to give long explanations of adult issues that are unsuitable for their age. The kind of information you share should depend on their age-development stage. Sharing information about adult issues can confuse children and cause additional distress.
In general, if you think that you may not be able to resolve of conflict or are worried it will escalate, it’s best to speak when your children are not around. Young people do best when parents and caregivers listen to each other’s opinions and find ways to resolve conflicts respectfully. They experience the most harm when they are repeatedly exposed to the same patterns of angry confrontation or emotional withdrawal.
Protecting Children from Adult Conflicts
If you are experiencing high levels of family conflict, there are some steps you can take to help protect young people from harm. These include:
- ensuring that children aren’t exposed to hostile behaviour, such as yelling, mocking, threats, and harsh criticism.
- making sure you don’t ask children for emotional support. Instead, speak with other adults, such as friends, relatives, community figures, or mental health professionals.
- not allowing children to take sides. Young people should never feel like they need to take your side in a conflict to keep your approval or love.
- practising healthy communication and conflict-resolution skills with other family members.
More generally, parenting that offers young people structure, warmth, support and positive reinforcement helps reduce the harm caused by parental conflicts. While conflicts can take a lot of energy from parents, it’s important that you find ways to continue these parenting practices even when tensions are high.
You can also support young people to spend time with other adults that they trust and love, such as relatives or family friends.
Finding Healthy Ways to Resolve Conflicts
Conflict and disagreement are inevitable parts of living alongside others. Working through conflicts—rather than avoiding them—is a fundamental part of maintaining strong and healthy relationships, families, and communities. Fair and respectful conflicts also help us learn, grow, and find positive change.
This means that acquiring healthy conflict-resolution skills is an important part of a young person’s development. Parents should learn and role model ‘fair fighting’ practices that not only protect children from harm but also support their social and emotional learning.
These practices include:
- understanding conflicts as a way to work collectively towards a resolution rather than to attack or ‘win’ against the other person
- listening to the other person, summarising what they understood, and checking how accurate their understanding was
- approaching one issue at a time rather than gathering problems and sharing them all at once
- limiting the length of conversations to around half an hour and, if necessary, scheduling another time to continue
- taking turns to speak and listen
- taking time to brainstorm different solutions that will work for everybody, including children and young people
- choosing one solution to try, and if it doesn’t work out, finding a different time to explore another one
If you’re having difficulties resolving a conflict or avoiding harmful behaviours, you may want to seek professional support. Family practitioners, mediators, and parenting coaches can help identify problematic behaviours, develop effective skills, and transform conflicts into positive growth.
The Wave Clinic: Specialist Mental Health Support for Children, Teenagers, and Young Adults
The Wave Clinic offers inpatient and outpatient treatment spaces for young people living with mental health disorders. We offer a diverse selection of treatment modalities designed and delivered by specialists in child and adolescent psychiatry. We take a whole-person approach to recovery, emphasising the influence of families, social systems, and past experiences on the way young people think, feel, and behave.
If you’re interested in finding out more about our programs, get in touch today. We’re here to help.
