Fighting with your spouse in front of your kids, or even ignoring each other, leads to negative thoughts and distress in your kids about your marriage and family today and even one year later.
That's one of the major findings from researchers at the University of Rochester in New York and the University of Notre Dame in their study on marital conflict and its effects on children published in the January/February 2006 issue of the journal Child Development.
"Witnessing high levels of destructive conflict between parents has been associated with greater child distress and negative thoughts in response to conflict," said lead researcher Patrick T. Davies, Ph.D., professor of psychology.
Although previous work has shown that children don't get used to this hostile conflict but, instead, become more sensitive to it, Dr. Davies and his colleagues wondered if different forms of destructive conflict between parents played different roles in children's reactions.
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