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Family conflicts affect a child's future adult life
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Parents who engage in domestic battles with each other in front of their children pass these habits on to their children. This is the conclusion reached by researchers from the United States.
Rashmi Shetgiri and colleagues at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center conducted 12 focus groups of students of varying ages to see how much their parents' domestic conflicts affected their own attitudes toward life.
It turned out that the more often mothers and fathers argued and quarreled with each other, sorting out their relationships in conflicts, the higher the risk that their children would also adopt this habit. Students from such families significantly more often proved their point of view with their fists, participating in conflicts.
"It is very important for parents to be an example for their children, they must not forget that domestic quarrels affect the future adult life of the child, who learns how to defend his point of view," says Dr. Shetgiri. "If a father raises his hand against his mother, then his son will also not see anything reprehensible in such behavior."
In childhood, a child begins to fight to protect himself, but in adolescence, such fights are already fraught with stories with criminal consequences. And a significant number of young prisoners who ended up behind bars for crimes related to cruelty and violence had exactly such "fighting" parents.
The study's findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Society in Boston. Scientists have once again proven that most children view their parents as role models, although they may formally view their perpetually bickering moms and dads as extremely negative.
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