Is it ever okay to fight in front of the kids?

Is it healthy for kids to see conflict being resolved? Or should marital meltdowns be kept behind closed doors?

So last week, Laura Dern told the world she thinks it’s healthy for couples to fight in front of their children. Hmmm. Somehow I don’t think it’s up there with green leafy vegetables.

Last year, the gorgeous, talented actress split with her husband and father of her two children, the equally gorgeous and talented muso Ben Harper. It sounds like things had been rocky for a while. Neither of them used the term “conscious uncoupling”.

Laura suggested recently that a therapist would say it’s good to fight in front of kids, so long as they can see the resolution.

“This is being human – you get angry, you get hurt, you yell and say things you don’t mean – and then you circle back and you’re accountable,” she insists. “Otherwise kids hit adulthood and they don’t know how to deal with conflict.”

Is that really what we want to teach kids? How to get angry, yell and say things you don’t mean, then apologise afterwards?

A lot of research has been done into how parents’ arguing affects children, and the findings are scary.

One US study showed that kindergarten kids whose parents fought “frequently and harshly” were more likely to struggle with depression, anxiety and behavioural issues by the time they reached Year 7. Yikes.

Interestingly, the study’s author, E. Mark Cummings, said it didn’t matter if there was conflict between parents. What mattered was how they dealt with it.

“If you don't always agree with your spouse, it's fine, as long as you can work it out constructively,” he explained.
That means parents need to fight fair, rather than “yell and say things you don’t mean”.

Laura believes it’s wrong to conceal arguments from children, no matter how heated. Well, I think it’s wrong to expose kids to heated arguments.

It can be terrifying for them to hear their parents shouting at each other. How are they supposed to know their parents don’t mean what they’re saying?

There are some arguments that kids should never hear. Fights about them are only going to make them feel guilty (or give them ammunition to use against their parents, depending on how devious they are). As for fights over sex (or lack thereof), no child of any age wants to hear their parents talking about that. Blocking my ears now. La la la la!

But a robust debate on whether Tony Abbott is doing a good job of running the country? Go for your lives.

It’s hard to avoid having shouting matches in front of the kids. I do it, more often than I’d like to admit. Once you have children, there are so many new and interesting things to fight about. (Me yelling last night: “Why didn’t you grab our son when he was running around the kitchen painting the walls green?” My husband: “Why didn’t you grab him?”)

But kids learn from parents, and pick up their style of dealing with conflict. That should be enough reason for all of us to at least try to stay calm.

I’m sorry for Laura. It's hard when a marriage ends, especially when there are kids involved. It must be even harder when you're famous and total strangers speculate about what went wrong in your private life (and maybe write snarky opinion pieces like this). But I'd respect her a lot more if she just said, "We fought a lot in front of the kids. It was ugly, and I regret it.”

How do you handle arguments in front of the kids?

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I'm onto you, Victoria Beckham.

For just a few hours I didn't have to apologise for my son.