Putting Children First: Proven Parenting Strategies for Helping Children Thrive Through Divorce by Pedro-Carroll JoAnne

Author:Pedro-Carroll, JoAnne [Pedro-Carroll, JoAnne]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2010-05-03T16:00:00+00:00

As you read in earlier chapters, children also suffer the consequences of their parents’ conflict. First, as described earlier, it is a major cause of stress, which puts them at risk both emotionally and physically. Second, parents in conflict model behaviors that few would want their children to adopt. Children learn what they live. If they observe their parents treating each other with rudeness, sarcasm, or verbal or physical abuse, they learn that these are acceptable behaviors and become more likely to engage in them. Third, when they hear a parent criticized, they may become concerned about being “defective” themselves, since well before they can understand genetics, they realize that they are “made of” their parents’ traits. Finally, conflict also deprives them of truly effective parenting—the kind of emotionally intelligent parenting described in chapter 7. They lose out on having their parents’ loving attention and a consistent structure to guide their behavior.

High levels of continuous conflict nearly always result in difficulties for children, and these problems may last a lifetime. As a large body of research reveals, children’s lives and their relationships with their parents are changed—for better or for worse—by how parents handle conflict following their divorce.

Research has shown which aspects of conflict have the most negative impact on children’s adjustment. Among the factors linked to the greatest difficulties for children are:• Witnessing or overhearing their parents’ aggressive or violent conflict, whether verbal or physical.

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