How much arguing it too much for kids?

[sopra]

I come from a very toxic household. My parents fought all the time. Screaming / occasional violence / horrible name calling/ threats of divorce / leaving my mum on the street with nothing/ telling her she's worthless etc etc. you name it, I heard it.

I remember feeling very anxious and scared when I would see / hear these arguments. My parents never even tried to hide this ( it feels like )..

Anyhow. I am married now. I have little kids. Life is stressful. I can't work out how much arguing is normal ? How about shouting ?

You could argue that the fact I ask this question means it's too much. But I didn't have a normal experience.

How often do normal people shout at each other or fight in front of their kids ? How will it affect them in later life ? My kids are 3 and 1.

We don't fight in front of the kids. I mean, I guess there's "bloody hell babe, where have you put the pasta?!" "oh did I put it in the wrong cupboard hang on" crap, but nothing personal. We don't fight often anyway.

Our old neighbours used to shut the kids in the house and sit outside in their car to scream at each other, so if you drive then I guess you could do that?

To be honest, when our kids were your age we were really, really scrupulous about keeping arguments out of their earshot.

They're school age now and we'll disagree in front of them - not frequently but we will show grumpiness or unhappiness. We got a bit more lax on this during the pandemic but to be honest I think it would have happened anyway and it does kids that age no harm to see that people can disagree more or less civilly and resolve it.

Full on shouting - temper-losing shouting? Still never in front of the kids. And once in a blue moon in general. I don't lose my temper and shout at people at work, I treat my husband with the same respect.

I occasionally shout at the kids but only when speaking normally has failed - it's a conscious decision deployed when it's required!

How often do normal people shout at each other or fight in front of their kids ?
Never.

They see us bickering, sure, but it’s good natured most of the time and sometimes (rarely) I might be a bit upset and I’m sure the DC pick up on it - then we’ll sort it out privately. I can’t imagine shouting at each other though.

We have never raised voices to each other, or argued in a negative way. If we disagree, we wait until we're calm and we're alone and discuss how we can compromise/do better.
That is the only acceptable amount of arguing and shouting in a respectful relationship.
BUT people are human, and fail sometimes! If you accidentally shout in the heat of the moment, just apologise for shouting and suggest talking about it later. This is a good thing to show your kids.
(note for the above to work I'm assuming your relationship is not in any way abusive and that you are both relatively decent people who want to make the relationship work)

We do disagree in front of the kids. They see us disagree, make our point and then work towards a compromise or, failing that, agreeing to disagree.

What we don't do is raise our voices, or attack each other's character or carry extend disagreement beyond the original conversation into the rest of our day.

I try to always phrase things positively and calmly. If I need to argue, I will send a voice message then come out with a smile on my face. We made a decision to prioritise communication and to not shout at each other. It works for us. I try to make jokes as well, partly this is because he is so cure that even when he’s annoyed he sounds loveable. He doesn’t really get angry. In fact, our problem might be that we are too relaxed and easy going.

Kids copy what they see. The copy the relationships modelled to them. Breaking the cycle of abuse can be as simple as making different choices or reacting differently.

We don’t. Kids are 9, 7 and 4 and we’ve never fought/shouted at each other in front of them. We don’t shout at each other anyway as a rule.
That doesn’t mean we don’t disagree in front of them. We do, and we discuss it calmly.

Having come from a shouting, swearing, name calling, pot throwing household - never.

Rarely but if they ever do over hear it, thr important thing is for them to witness the solution and calmness afterwards too. Your modelling how they deal with conflict so let them see the apologies and hugs if they have to see the bickering too

I'm separated from my children's father. Throughout the whole relationship, even when he had an affair we never argued in front of the kids.

We don't have kids yet, but I still remember when I asked my partner how much his parents argued/shouted at each other around him, and him saying never. I was like "people really live like that?!"

...and I'm not bashing my parents, as they both grew up in really difficult circumstances and were nowhere near as bad as their own parents, but they couldn't really control their tempers at all. Whereas I am scared of confrontation, a people pleaser and find it really difficult to express my emotions. I tend to be passive aggressive when I'm annoyed, which I'm working on.

We don't argue in front of the kids, but we also don't argue! 22 years together and maybe 10 arguments in total over the years. Even then they've never been anything big.

I know its normal to have fall outs at times, but this doesn't sound healthy at all OP.

We don’t. You are probably best placed to say what effect arguing like that might have, having sadly experienced it yourself as a child ☹️

I'm not really sure to be honest !

Sounds like my childhood was similar, I have very bad memories.

Never argued in front of my kids (don’t really argue at all, but conflict upsets me even now), and we always resolved minor disputes in front of them. No shouting/ violence/ drunkenness etc which is what I experienced. It was really scary as a child.

I’m sorry about what you’ve experienced OP, you must be a lot younger than me. I’m now in my 50s and what I went through haunts me more as I get older. Please be kind to yourself and if you can discuss your experiences with someone it would be good I think. As I said, not so much at your age but later I realised what happened to me was not normal and not what children should be exposed to.

All the best x

Eldest 15, youngest 5. We’ve had two arguments where we’ve shouted in front of them since we’ve had them. They might hear a little bit of bickering if we’re in a tired and had a bad day at work, but we stop that immediately once we realise we’ve begun snapping at each other, and take a breather.

Never. Eldest is 12, I grew up in a house of shouting, arguments can wait. None of this passive aggressive not talking either which is what really affected me as a child, I found that worse than shouting.

I’d personally do everything you can to not argue or shout in front of them. Mostly as then how do you tell them not to shout or argue.

They're a bit small for shouting and arguing, but yes, it makes sense.

We never shout at each other anyway, kids or not.

But we might argue a bit in front of them. I don't see anything wrong with them seeing that people disagree, figure it out, compromise, apologise, move on etc. The arguments are never "bad" - there's no shouting, swearing, personal insults or anything.

Hey OP

my childhood sounds a lot like yours, occasional violence, shouting every day, being made to feel guilty etc and I have a one and four year old.

I shout way way more than I want to. I’ve had psychotherapy which has helped with this but between me and my husband things are spiralling a lot and we are shouting/ name calling etc far more than we should. Probably twice a week.

me and DH love each other and he is a really great man, when it’s just the two of us we don’t argue at all. When you throw in the stress of life and children and balancing work and no sleep for over two years then I tend to boil over. DH rarely/ never shouts back - his parents never shouted and it’s just not him.

Ive suggested some couples counselling for us and I think we need to learn how to communicate better in the heat of the moment. So I’m hoping that helps.

what I try and do is apologise to him in front of the kids if I’ve shouted, and we hug it out and let the kids know it was just a silly thing between mummy and daddy and not to do with them at all. It’s not as good as not shouting in the first place but the repair is better than not repairing if that makes sense?

it’s really hard to break these generational cycles, I’ve read ever gentle parenting book going and am probably a good mother 90% of the time but this is my downfall. I am trying though and I think that if you’re doing the best you can/ seeking help/ repairing when you need to then you are too.

good luck with it

My upbringing was very much like yours, OP which made me feel anxious and embarrassed. However, I did have a friend/colleague who described her parents having the perfect marriage and they NEVER argued. She said she can’t cope at all with any confrontation/cross word with her husband and feels like it’s the end of the world and the relationships over. She said that because she’d never seen that normal model of problem and resolution, she didn’t know how to deal with it when an issue came up.

I can recall 1 argument my parents had (over f-i-l) with proper screaming and shouting. I was a teenager and terrified. However my mum could be very passive aggressive and you had to try and second guess her mood and how to behave, which wasnt great or healthy either!!
Personally I struggled to speak my mind for quite a while we we first got our house because I'd never dared at home.
As parents we've never fought in front of the kids but that's probably because we don't argue, both very chilled.
With the kids if I ve spoke harshly/ shouted I ALWAYS apologise /repair with them later, so they can see that relationships are not finished because of a disagreement and they understand how to put things right.

My parents argued quite a lot. My problem is that they made up in private so I never saw how that would worked.

How do children (? Especially only children) learn to resolve issues if they never see conflict?