We all know that it's bad for our kids to fight in front of them. Yes, it's not ideal to scream at our beloved spouses how stupid and ugly they are while our children are listening. The sad truth is that kids who are exposed to negative kinds of marital conflict tend to be more aggressive and have more emotional problems [1].
Thus, it's not surprising that a study of 47 couples who kept track of their marital conflicts over a 15-day period showed that they fought less frequently in front of their kids (8-16 years) [2]. However, what was puzzling is that both the husbands and wives reported that they used more negative conflict tactics, such as insulting their spouse and aggressing toward objects, when their kids were present. Both spouses also reported being more angry during conflicts that occurred in front of their kids. The worst part was that they were more likely to fight about child-related issues when their kids were present; and research has shown that these kinds of conflicts are particularly distressing for kids to observe [3].
So the question is why might we fight harder in front of our kids? Researchers have yet to provide an answer to this question. In fact, when they have observed marital conflicts in the laboratory, they have found that spouses tend to fight better (e.g., use calm discussion), not worse, when their kids are present [4]. Thus, it seems that who is looking (e.g., researchers or our kids) makes a difference in our fight tactics.
One possible explanation for why we might fight worse in front of our kids at home is that even though we care very much about protecting them, we don't want to look bad in front of them. After all, many studies have shown that we are motivated to construct desirable images of ourselves in the eyes of other people [5]. Therefore, we may become even more angry at our spouses when they treat us badly while our kids are looking because our kids' opinions of us matter. Keep in mind that the kids were 8-16 years old in that study in which worse fighting occurred in front of them [2]. Who wants to be dissed in front of their teenagers? If our spouses make us look like we are not worth listening to, then we may fear that our children will draw that same conclusion. So we end up defending ourselves by fighting more vehemently with our spouses in front of our kids!
I admit that I am speculating about these fascinating and useful findings from Lauren Papp and E. Mark Cummings. Please tell me what you think based on your own parenting experiences.
References
1. Cummings, E. M. (1998). Children exposed to marital conflict and violence: Conceptual and theoretical directions. In G. Holden, B. Geffner, & E. Jouriles (Eds.), Children exposed to marital violence: Theory, research, and applied issues (pp. 55–94). Washington, DC: American.
2. Papp, L. M., Cummings, E. M., & Goeke-Morey, M. C. (2002). Marital conflicts in the home when children are present versus absent. Developmental Psychology, 38, 774–783.
3. Grych, J. H., & Fincham, F. D. (1993). Children’s appraisals of marital conflict: Initial investigations of the cognitive-contextual framework. Child Development, 64, 215–230.
4. Deal, J. E., Hagan, M. S., Bass, B., Hetherington, E. M., & Clingempeel, G. (1999). Marital interaction in dyadic and triadic contexts: Continuities and discontinuities. Family Process, 38, 105–115.
5. Baumeister, R. F. (1982). A self-presentational view of social phenomena. Psychological Bulletin, 91, 3-26.
