If you are grappling with a difficult child:
Refuse to enter into power struggles. State your position in a forthright way, and allow your family member to make choices for him- or herself. Let him know that your love and respect is not contingent on their agreement with you.
Keep the channels of communication open and respectful. Try actively listening without judgment while encouraging any disclosure. Offer your own heartfelt desires for communication by disclosing your vulnerabilities. This models nonjudgmental openness and disclosure.
Pay attention to middle-born children. It is easy to assume that they receive equal attention when in fact, they do not.
If you are deadlocked with a parent:
Do not assume that you understand what your parent means if they complain about sadness, love, or life. Ask them to define it.
Stop demanding that your parent view things your way. A demand that they understand can hang you up in a resentful loop. An open discussion of differences will be more productive.
Although you're the "child," you may now be an adult: Define yourself as such even if your parents do not.
Living with others increases the opportunity for all types of interaction, especially conflict. Struggles between parents and their children are common manifestations of family life. In fact, families may have more conflict that other social groups. Prior theory and research regarding Western, individualist cultures suggests that as such contact and interdependence between people increases, conflict becomes more likely and more frequent (Braiker and Kelley 1979). However, in Eastern collectivist cultures, the increase in conflict may not result in such situations due to a preference for nonconfrontation (Chua and Gudykunst 1987). However, virtually no research examines how family communication in conflict differs based upon culture. Some reasons for this paucity of research are discussed in the conclusion. This entry focuses on research describing the nature of parent-child conflict from a Western perspective.
As with marital relationships, an average amount of conflict between parents and children is difficult to determine, although there are estimates (e.g., Montemayor 1986). The frequency of conflict appears to be linked with child development. For example, the highest number of conflicts—mother-child interactions—occurred with two-year-olds versus children who were eighteen months or three years old (Dunn and Munn 1987). Among adolescents, conflict interactions tend to increase until about the age of fifteen, and then subside in later adolescence. Parent-child conflict is probably related to parental development as well, though research is currently less definitive in this area.
Beyond conflict frequency, one of the most rudimentary features of conflict management is whether an issue is engaged or avoided. Engagement involves overt, verbal confrontation. Avoidance can take many forms, including withholding complaints, evading discussion of sensitive issues, and defensively withdrawing from a conflict discussion. Different families establish different norms regarding the frequency with which conflicts are engaged or avoided.
Another important dimension of conflict management concerns its positivity or negativity (Sillars and Wilmot 1994). Some behaviors are relatively positive in sentiment and affective tone, such as conciliatory statements, supportive comments that validate the other's point of view, attempts to understand the other's position, and so on. Negative behaviors are disagreeable, inflammatory, and sometimes hostile. Examples include demands, threats, insults, and defensiveness. Distressed families exhibit more negative conflict behaviors, greater reciprocation of negative emotions and behaviors, and a lower proportion of positive behaviors compared to non-distressed families (e.g., Montemayor 1986).
An important feature of parent-child relationships that may affect the negativity of conflicts is that the relationships are not voluntary. In other words, children do not pick their parents. Like marriage partners, parents and their offspring develop considerable intimacy. More so than spouses, however, parents and their children are "bound" in a family relationship, which can serve to intensify serious conflicts between them, and family disputes often represent underlying relational struggles regarding power or intimacy (Emery 1992).
Regardless of the "involuntary" nature of parent-child relationships, family conflict has the potential to positively impact children. Specifically, childhood conflict interactions can contribute positively to personal and social development. Moreover, parents can develop their negotiation skills in conflicts with their children. To garner such positive rewards from conflict interactions, family members need two basic skills for conflict management: flexibility versus rigidity and the ability to manage conflict without escalating the severity of the problem.
Clearly, the study of these general features of parent-child conflict contributes to understanding the experience. Additionally, one important theme consistently emerges in discussions of these general features: development. Focusing on how parent-child conflict evolves as children (and parents) age provides a more thorough picture of the phenomenon. The following sections survey the research findings regarding parent-child conflict based upon the general age group of the children.
Children not only learn from what they do, but they also learn from what they see their parents doing. Realizing this can be important because many parents express their conflicts and disagreements in front of their children. Consider the following before you disagree, argue or start a conflict in front of your children.
Children who are fortunate enough to have two parents will need and love both parents. The emotional bonds formed between parents and children cause children to notice and adopt the values, attitudes and behavior of their parents. Children trust, imitate and try to pay attention to the people they bond with. But unlike adults, children tend to absorb the perspective of both parents directly. They do so with little hesitation and without experience.
Younger children are more likely than older children to "take in" the perspectives of both parents. When parents express their conflicts, the psychological impact on children can produce uncertainty, emotional instability, erratic thinking and hyperactivity. While many children are not affected by mild disagreements, some children are more sensitive and prone to act on the basis of confused feelings. How do children cope with conflicted parental views of what is right or wrong? The answer is, "They don’t do it very well." Uncertainty and emotionality is the result and that leads to erratic and volatile behavior.
The impact of disagreements and conflicts will vary as children get older. For the most part, children begin to decide what to believe when they are about eight years old. Some children take a little longer to make these choice. But what many parents don’t realize is that children will begin to ignore their parents wishes, values and attitudes when their parents argue and express their conflicts in their presence. Children tend to think, "If my parents can’t agree, then I guess I’m free to believe and do what ever I want." Both parents lose credibility when they argue in front of children.
Disagreements and conflicts can lead to even more problems. For instance, if one parent ends up losing the argument, then a child may end up taking sides with one parent over the other. Children can develop problems when they end up valuing the parent who simply gives them what they want. The notion of right and wrong can disappear when children focus on getting what you want and not what they need. Even though it might feel good to be the favorite parent when you give your child what they want, it doesn’t help your child in the long run.
Well-researched areas in health care describe the impact of angry, aggressive and violent behavior on the human body. The resulting stress creates high levels of agitation and ultimately it can compromise a child’s health. Long or frequent exposures to arguments and conflict can "program" or "condition" children with perpetual anxiety, depressive response tendencies and a poor tolerance of frustration. The personality of some these children will become "cranky", easily frustrated and irritable.
Imitation of parental behavior is the final and most frustrating consequence of parent conflicts and disagreements. Children not only imitate their parent’s behavior, but they tend to engage in competitive escalation. They try to out do their parents. In this way, children learn to express their self with a similar tone, volume, pitch and rate. This explains why so many children end up acting like the very parent they have conflicts with.