Family Friday - How To Fight With Kids

Happy Family Friday dear sisters!  Mandy is having some computer issues right now, so I am holding down the fort for her today.

Every couple disagrees.  It is just a matter of life.  Even the best of marriages will have occasional disagreements.  Now, our disagreements should never be knock down drag out fights, we need to learn to fight fair.  But that is a post for another time.

Today I want to talk about fighting in front of the kiddos.  Your children see and hear everything.  They even feel the tension in the room.  They see the difference in attitudes.  When we fight we are teaching our children so much.  We are teaching them how to fight, how to respect or disrespect their future spouse, how to deal with emotions properly or wrong and how to forgive or not forgive.  If you notice, each thing had two sides.  Depending on how we fight with our husband, we are showing our children the right way to do it or the wrong way.

When you and your husband fight, are you teaching your daughter to raise her voice and disrespect her husband?  Is your husband teaching your son that it is okay to push his wife around?

So, how do we handle disagreements when we have children?

• Never fight directly in front of the kids.  Take it to your bedroom and shut the door.
• Never yell.  Even in another room, voices can drift to your children.  Speak calmly and quietly.
• Never, ever lay your hands on your spouse in a threatening way. Period.  If your children do happen to see you, that is something that can stick with them for the rest of their lives.
• Even if you fight in the privacy of your room (which you will do, right?), be sure that your children see you make up.  This means when you are done with your disagreement, you come out of the room no longer fighting.  Come out holding hands or some how showing your love to each other.
• If you did happen to fight in front of the children or your voices carried to them, be sure to apologize in front of them.  They need to understand that we must apologize when we wronged someone.
• If you are angry with your spouse and he is not there to discuss the matter with him, do not talk bad about him to the kids.

Disagreements will come.  But we must handle them with great care.  The next time you and your husband disagree about something remember that you have little eyes watching and little ears that are listening.  Be careful how you fight.


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Sweet Blessings~