Arguing in front of children: when it harms and how to repair it

“Are you fighting again?”

A seven-year-old is standing in the kitchen doorway in her pyjamas, dragging a blanket behind her. Her parents stop mid-sentence. Her mum says “no, sweetheart, we’re just talking”, her dad turns towards the dishwasher. The girl goes back to bed, but she doesn’t fall asleep. She lies there listening for whether the voices in the kitchen will rise again.

Evenings like this happen in almost every family. And almost every parent who describes one to me has the same question: did we hurt her? The answer the research gives is both more reassuring and more demanding than you might expect. Reassuring, because disagreement in itself does not harm a child. Demanding, because how you argue matters a great deal — and above all, what happens afterwards.

In this post I will summarise what we know about arguing in front of children, when an argument really does weigh on a child, how to repair it and what to tell your child. I did not write it to make parents feel guilty. I wrote it because repair is almost always possible.

Children hear more than we think

Parents often hope their child didn’t notice because she was in another room, because he was watching cartoons or because they were still too small. Research shows that children notice much earlier and much more.

In 2013 Alice Graham, Philip Fisher and Jennifer Pfeifer looked at the brains of infants aged six to twelve months while they were asleep in an MRI scanner. They played them nonsense sentences spoken in a neutral, happy, mildly angry and very angry tone. Infants from homes where mothers reported more frequent conflict between the parents responded more strongly to the very angry tone — in brain areas linked to stress and emotion regulation. They did not understand a single word. They still recognised the tone.

This does not mean that one loud evening has marked a baby for life. It does mean that a child responds to the atmosphere between their parents before they can even talk — and that “but she was asleep” is rarely the whole truth. Older children go further still: they don’t just hear the argument, they try to understand it, predict it and sometimes stop it.

It’s not whether you argue, but how

The most influential work in this field has been done by the American psychologist Mark Cummings and his long-time colleague Patrick Davies. Over several decades of research — in the laboratory, through diaries that parents kept at home and in conversations with children — they reached a conclusion that is now almost universally accepted in developmental psychology: conflict between parents is not one single thing. There is conflict that unsettles a child and weighs on them in the long run, and conflict that does not — or even teaches them something.

They called the difference destructive and constructive conflict. Marcie Goeke-Morey, together with Cummings and colleagues, asked children how they experienced different ways of arguing. The children distinguished between them very clearly. Shouting, insults, threats, physical aggression and cold withdrawal upset them. Calm discussion, looking for a solution, signs of affection in the middle of a disagreement and making up reassured them — sometimes they even felt better after such a conversation than before it.

It matters what is not on the destructive list: anger itself. Anger is an emotion like any other, and a child who never sees their parents get angry and then make up will find it hard to learn that anywhere else. I wrote in more detail about how two adults can argue without wounding each other in How to argue with your partner: rules that actually work. The last point on the right, the child in the middle, has a name of its own — you will find it in the knowledge base under triangulation, and I will come back to it.

Emotional security: the question a child asks

Why are shouting and silence so hard for a child? In 1994 Davies and Cummings proposed an explanation they called the emotional security hypothesis. When parents argue, a child is not thinking about the content — money, housework or the mother-in-law. Without being aware of it, they ask one single question: is my family still safe?

For a child, the relationship between their parents is a kind of floor they walk on. When the floor shakes, a child responds in three ways that researchers describe well:

• Emotionally — with fear, sadness, tension in the body, trouble sleeping.
• With vigilance — they start monitoring their parents’ moods, listening through walls, reading faces at dinner.
• By intervening — they try to stop the argument: they get hurt, fall ill, act up, crack a joke, become especially good or step in between their parents.

In the moment, these responses make sense. The problem arises when they repeat for years. Cummings showed that children do not get used to frequent destructive conflict, as you might expect. The opposite happens: they become more sensitive. Every raised voice hits them harder than the last. A child who constantly has to check whether the floor is still solid has less energy for play, learning and friendships.

In an extensive 2018 review of the research, Gregory Harold and Ruth Sellers concluded that for a child’s mental health, the quality of the relationship between the parents is often more important than whether the parents live together or have separated. This matches what I wrote in Children and divorce: what the research really says about what protects them: it is not divorce itself but long-lasting hostile conflict that weighs most heavily on a child.

Children who see the making up

Here comes the most encouraging part of the research. In laboratory studies, Cummings and colleagues played children recordings of arguments between adults. What turned out to be crucial was how the argument ended. When it ended in reconciliation, children were far less upset than when it was left unresolved or ended in silence. A partial resolution helped more than none at all. And — this matters for everyday life — it also helped when children did not see the reconciliation but were told that the adults had made up.

So a child doesn’t need parents who never argue. They need parents who bring an argument to an end. Making up is proof to a child that a relationship can survive anger — and that is one of the most valuable things they can carry into their own future relationships. What reconciliation means in a relationship is briefly explained in the knowledge base under reconciliation.

This is how the morning after such an evening might sound (a composite, not a real person):

“Mummy, are you and Daddy still cross?”
“We were yesterday. You heard us, didn’t you?”
She nods, looking into her cereal.
“Yes, we were loud. We disagreed about something that matters to us. This morning we talked it through and we’re OK again.”
“Because of me?”
“No. Not because of you at all. It’s something between Daddy and me, and we will sort it out.”
“OK.” A pause. “Can I have some more milk?”

That “can I have some more milk?” is a good sign. The child got an answer to the question that was worrying her and can go back to her day. The conversation took half a minute. There was no need to explain what the argument was about, to apologise endlessly or to pretend nothing had happened.

What to tell your child — and what not to

Parents often get stuck at one of two extremes. One is silence: “we won’t mention it so we don’t make it worse”. The other is too many words: explaining to the child who was right, what Dad said and why Mum is hurt. Both extremes leave the child alone — the first with guessing, the second with a burden that isn’t theirs.

What a child needs is short and simple:

• Acknowledging that they heard. “You heard us being angry.” Denial (“it was nothing”) teaches a child not to trust their own senses.
• Lifting the weight. “It’s not because of you and it’s not your job to fix it.” Children, especially younger ones, are quick to blame themselves.
• News of the ending. “We’ve talked it through.” Or, if it isn’t resolved yet: “We’re still talking about it, but the two of us will sort it out.”
• Room for questions. “If anything is worrying you, you can ask me.” And then really answer — in a way that suits their age, without details of adult matters.

What not to say: content that puts the child on one parent’s side (“your father has spent all the money again”), threats of separation that are not a considered decision, and requests for the child to pass a message on to the other parent. You can tell a teenager a little more about the fact that there is a disagreement, but still not details that belong between the two of you.

There is no need to wait for the perfect moment. A conversation in the car, at breakfast or before bed is quite enough. All that matters is that the child is not left alone guessing what happened and whether everything is still all right.

Exercise: a repair you can make today

If you have argued with your partner in front of your child in the last few days and it is still weighing on you, there is something very concrete you can do. The exercise is meant for both parents, but you can also do it on your own.

1. Settle yourself first. Only start talking to your child once your body is no longer tense — once your breathing has slowed and there is no edge left in your voice. A child reads your tone more than your words. If you need a pause, take one; I wrote about how in Taking a break during an argument: how to step away without walking out.
2. Agree with your partner on what you will say. Two sentences are enough: that you were angry, and that you were not angry because of the child. If you don’t agree on the content yet, agree at least on this.
3. Find a calm moment and name what happened. “Yesterday you heard Mum and me shouting.” Without justifying the content and without blaming the other parent.
4. Lift the weight and show the ending. “It’s not because of you. We’ve talked it through.” Or: “We’re still talking about it, but the two of us will sort it out.” If you are both there, a small gesture — a hug, a smile, a shared joke — is stronger proof for a child than any words.
5. Ask and listen. “How was it for you when you heard us?” Don’t correct your child’s feelings (“it wasn’t that bad”). Just accept them: “I understand you were scared.”

If you and your partner often get stuck in arguments at the point where you can no longer hear each other, it helps to know the small gestures that stop an argument before it gets out of hand — they are the subject of Repair attempts: how to stop an argument before it gets out of hand.

When conflict harms a child

Everything so far applies to ordinary arguments — including loud ones, including those that end with a slammed door. There are, however, two forms of conflict that no explanation over breakfast can repair.

Violence. When one parent hits, intimidates, threatens, locks in or controls the other, it is no longer an argument. Under the Slovenian Family Violence Prevention Act, a child who witnesses violence is also a victim of violence. In that case a child doesn’t need an explanation, they need safety — and the parent experiencing violence needs help. In Slovenia, call the SOS helpline for women and children victims of violence on 080 11 55 (free of charge), and if you are in danger, call the police on 113 or 112. You can read more about how to recognise violence in the knowledge base under violence in a relationship.

Triangulation. The second form is quieter and harder to notice. It is when the tension between the parents is taken on by the child. The family therapist Murray Bowen described how a two-person relationship under pressure tends to expand into a triangle: when the tension between two people becomes too great, a third is drawn in and temporarily relieves it. In a family, that third is often a child. It shows when:

• the child carries messages (“tell your mum that…”),
• one parent complains to the child about the other and looks for an ally in them,
• the child has to choose who to be with, who to believe, whose side they are on,
• the parents only talk about the child’s problems any more — because it is the one subject they don’t fight about.

Triangulation gives a child a role that isn’t theirs: they become a confidant, a go-between or a scapegoat. Because it happens without shouting, parents often even experience it as closeness. But in it the child loses something they need: the right to love both parents without betraying anyone. I wrote about the roles children take on in such families in Roles in the family: the hero, the scapegoat, the invisible child. Which was yours?

This is not about guilt

When parents read something like this, what they often feel most is guilt. They remember all the evenings they were loud and all the mornings they said nothing about it. I want to be clear: guilt is not useful here. Responsibility is — and that is something else.

Guilt looks back and says: “I’ve damaged him.” Responsibility looks forward and says: “Today I can do something differently.” In relational family therapy, in which I am training, we often notice that the parents who blame themselves most experience their own arguments as a repetition of something from their own childhood. Someone who grew up with parents who argued without ever making up often has only two options themselves: explode or go silent. The third, reconciliation, they never saw. Christian Gostečnik describes this as a pattern that is passed down from generation to generation until someone becomes aware of it.

The good news is that it can be interrupted in your very generation. A child who sees their parents argue and then make up gets something you may not have had: the experience that conflict is not the end of the world. I described in more detail how attachment patterns pass from parents to children in Attachment and parenting: how the pattern passes to a child. An important concept here is co-regulation — a child learns to calm down alongside a parent who knows how to calm themselves.

If the same argument keeps coming back between the two of you and you feel you are going round in circles, it is worth looking at what lies underneath it. Often it isn’t about the subject you are arguing over — that is what It is not about the dishes: what really lies underneath recurring arguments is about.

Where this idea does not hold

Someone could take everything I have written as advice that parents should argue in front of their children because it teaches them something. It is not that simple.

Some subjects do not belong in front of children. Infidelity, sex, serious financial trouble in detail, decisions about divorce that have not yet been made — these are conversations for adults. It is not wrong for a child to see that their parents disagree about something. It is wrong if they have to carry content they cannot understand or can do nothing about.

Avoiding conflict is not the answer. After reading research like this, some parents decide they will never argue in front of their children again. They move the argument to the bedroom or never have it at all. But children sense tension even without words. Silence, coldness and days when the parents don’t look at each other are, in the research of Cummings’s group, among the ways that unsettle children most. A child who feels tension that nobody names is left alone with guessing.

It isn’t all about arguments. If a child is anxious, sad or constantly withdrawing, arguments between their parents are not necessarily the reason. A child’s wellbeing is also shaped by temperament, school, friends, illness in the family and much else. Some children are by nature more sensitive to tension than others, so the same evening will barely touch one child and worry another for days. If your child’s state has worried you for a while, talk to their paediatrician or the school counselling service, who can help you judge whether further professional help is needed.

When a couple needs more than advice. If your arguments have long been going nowhere, if there is no making up afterwards, or if your child already regularly steps in, it is a sign that couples therapy could help you. There you argue in a space where someone helps keep the argument from flaring up — I wrote about how that works in How we argue safely in couples therapy, and why arguing is allowed at all.

What to remember

• Children pick up on arguments very early — even babies respond to an angry tone, including while they sleep.
• According to the research of Cummings and Davies, it is not disagreement that harms, but a destructive style: shouting, insults, threats, aggression and long silences.
• During an argument a child checks one thing: is my family still safe? Making up answers that question.
• It already helps to tell your child that you have made up — briefly, without details, with a clear “it’s not because of you”.
• Violence and triangulation are not arguments an explanation can repair — they call for safety and help.