An unhealthy relationship between two adults can create quite the harmful environment for your child to grow up in. The occasional spat with no use of insults and derogatory names is quite normal and even helps children understand how to deal with any arguments in a healthy way. But name-calling, the silent treatment and physical interactions are some of the more toxic treatments that can severely affect your child’s wellbeing- here’s how exactly:
Insecurity
Intense fighting always increases the child’s emotional security. When there’s consistent discord at home, of course this will make the child question the stability of his family. It’ll always be a question of “are my parents getting divorced?”, “when will they stop ignoring each other?” or “Is my dad really going to leave home?” As much as you think you may be fighting within a closed room of 4 walls, your child will always be able to hear it on the other side and the unpredictability of how long this treatment is going to last for disrupts their sense of normalcy.
Parent-Child Dynamics
Needless to say, an unhappy home will severely put some stress on your parent-child relationship. When angry and upset with your significant other, it becomes quite hard for you to fake normalcy for the sake of your children so you unintentionally lack warmth and affection when around your child. Thus, this affects the quality of relationship and ultimately the child is significantly hurt and may possibly feel like a burden.
Cognitive Performance
Studies have also linked poor cognitive performance to students who live in high-conflict homes. With parents constantly fighting, children often find it difficult to focus their attention onto tasks as well as control their emotions. This means that their ease in solving problematic tasks and pattern recognition is lessened.
Aggressive Behaviour
A child’s caregiver has an incredibly influential impact on what behaviours they pick up on as they grow up so unfortunately, poor conduct and conflict in their home as well as the natural emotional displacement they feel can also explain any increased aggression and delinquency. This is usually a significant indication that things at home have gone on without interference for far too long. Before it gets to this step, make sure you enlist in some professional help through marriage counselling Melbourne that will help you identify the proper steps to take and how to minimize the hurt you’re causing your child.
Relationship Issues
As mentioned before, kids tend to pick up their parent’s behaviours quite fast. This means that you might find them using the same tactics with peers or siblings that they’ve noticed their parents using in a fight. It also gets them used to high conflict situations within family dynamics at a young age, which makes them unaccustomed to forming healthy relationships as they grow older, giving way to various insecurities and trust issues.
The occasional argument, if handled well, can be a great learning curve for a kid but growing up in a high-conflict environment can be very detrimental to their health. You’ll want to consider a therapist if this is the case in your home.
