There are many theories about the routes through which conflict harms children. This is not about simple cause and effect, or a parent blaming themselves or their co-parent: it is about parents and practitioners understanding the processes or the ‘chain of events’ so that steps can be taken to reduce harmful conflict. There follows a short explanation of these pathways.
During pregnancy
Elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol (released when in conflict) during pregnancy can affect foetal behavioural, emotional and cognitive development. Sensitive early parenting helps attachment, and can counteract some of what happens in the womb.5
Modelling: Children see: Children do
Children observe the people around them and imitate the behaviours they see; parents are their children’s first ‘model’ or teacher (Bandura, 1977, Social Learning Theory). It follows that they may imitate their parents’ negative communication and conflict resolution styles.8
Parenting
The impact of parental conflict ‘spills over’43 into the parent/child relationship: this will include feelings of anger, sadness, frustration, bitterness, blame, hopelessness and loss of control. Recent evidence suggests that dads49,50,51 are more sensitive to parental conflict, so that emotional ‘spillover’ in their parenting is greater. Mothers may overcompensate for the conflict by removing boundaries or buying gifts.52
Children’s perception
Even when a parent manages to sustain a positive parent-child relationship, children can be negatively affected by how they perceive the conflict between their parents. Children who see the conflict as threatening or who feel unable to cope, may experience more externalising type problems (aggression, behaviour problems), whereas children who blame themselves may experience more internalising type problems (anxiety, depression). Children may also experience a general sense of emotional insecurity resulting in the same internalising and externalising outcomes.54
The family stress model
This model16,44 explains the importance of the parental relationship as a route through which stresses impact the parents and the children. Essentially, when each parent is affected by stresses in their lives, their mental and emotional health is undermined as is their parenting, which affects children detrimentally. The stresses can relate to the parents as individuals or as a couple and will include things like pressures from the wider family, the loss of a job, issues around a disability or illness, housing or debts, mental health and alcohol or substance misuse. Psychological health effects can include depression and anxiety which can present as tiredness, a ‘shorter fuse’, the reliance on alcohol or drugs55,56, feelings of being ‘at the end of their tether’, feeling ‘over sensitive’ or withdrawal from their partner. All of these stresses and behaviours are likely to lead to conflict.
