Do you argue or fight in front of the kids?

[Anonymous]

Lately, my husband and I have been arguing or yelling at each other in front of the kids and I feel horrible.
He grew up witnessing normal behavior with his parents and normal mild arguments. I never saw one argument or heard one raised voice in my life. When dating prior to marriage, I used to break up with all of my exes because we fought/ argued all the time and I thought we were doomed. I used to think the same when I married him and started normal petty arguments until I finally figured it out that I didn't know how to fight or argue or resolve problems within my relationship.
I want to show my kids that arguing and getting through petty things is fine and will almost become a normal for any relationship but I think our arguing is getting to them. One stated from the other room that we just argued about that yesterday. The other will come in and push us both together for a family hug and tell us to say our sorry.

I feel like a schmuck.

How much do you let your kids see?
Second posed question. Do you raise your voice to your kids?
I feel like a double schmuck.

When I say fight I mean argue. Never would I condone physical fighting.

[Anonymous]

Yes, on a rare occasion. Usually we can hide it from them, but if we are in the car or something it's hard to avoid. Only a handful of times a year. I feel terrible but I'm human too. The kids, most of the time, see us in a wonderful relationship, we are very affectionate and loving to each other as well as to them. They see us have arguments, but then resolve them and make up. So hopefully we are setting a good example too.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, we have boxing gloves and mouth guards and go at it. The oldest kid is the referee and the twins are the judges.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely. It's important for my kids to know how to stick up for themselves, how to argue fairly, and how to do healthy conflict resolution. So while yes, they see us argue - sometimes very loudly - they also see us come back together, apologize to each other, etc.

Yes, we yell at our kids. It's important for them to grasp that their words and actions have the power to hurt or anger people, that the adults in their life are human and have real feelings, etc.

[Anonymous]

You want them to be able to see conflict and how it is resolved. Its not a bad thing.

But you don't want them to see fighting, cussing, and screaming matches.

[Anonymous]

i never saw my parents fight and they divorced

dh parents always fought and they divorced

we don't fight much, but when we argue, we don't hide it from the kids unless they are what we are fighting about -- and they also see us resolve the argument and know that we still love each other

[Anonymous]

Confession: I was screaming at my husband on the phone Monday while holding my already sick and crabby 10 month old. We both started crying. It was terrible.

[Anonymous]

About 3-4 times a year. Raised voices. Nothing mean said. Worked out by the next day.

They upset my son a lot and we have to talk him through it. Just like he gets mad at me, or I get mad at him, his dad and I can get mad at one another. But we work through it.

I think "fighting" fair and respectfully, as well as showing how you solve the problem, are important.

[Anonymous]

We have, but not to the point of screaming. We seemed to forget the kid is with us, once it hits us, we stop arguing.
We might continue it later, but we usually have chilled out by that time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You want them to be able to see conflict and how it is resolved. Its not a bad thing.

But you don't want them to see fighting, cussing, and screaming matches.

This. We have arguments, but then we make sure that DD also sees it when we make up, say we are sorry, and say, "Let's start over and move on." I don't want her to fear conflict (DH"s family is like this) and to know that people can disagree, and then life goes on.

[Anonymous]

This is a tough one, and one I struggle with. Whether or not you fight in front of the kids, I do think it is very important not to undermined the other parent's authority in front of the kids.

[Anonymous]

Yes we do. I don't like it and do it on purpose, but I just cannot control myself to wait to do it behind closed doors. It is just NOT my personality nor my husband's. But that is pretty much how it is done in both our cultures.

[Anonymous]

I don't. DH and I might disagree with each other in front of the kids but we don't argue.

[Anonymous]

Disagreements, yes. But no yelling or raised voices. We don't call each other names or use personal insults, anyway, but I would definitely not do that in front of the kids. And I would only argue in front of them if I could argue in a manner I would want them to copy--disagreeing while still listening to and respecting the other person, working toward a compromise, and resolving the argument or shelving it for another time. And we don't argue about them in front of them, ever.

[Anonymous]

It's happened although we work our best to minimize it. The kids are still little (3 year old and a baby) so sometimes we're at our wits ends. We do apologize to each other in front of the 3 year old, and I've explained to the 3 year old that sometimes mommy is cranky and has done some bad behavior by yelling (I'm the yeller in our house unfortunately), but mommy is sorry and I am going to take some quiet time so I can do better. The 3 YO inherited my "fiery" temperament, so I think it's good at least to show how you try to manage a temper and how you apologize and correct things if your temper gets the best of you.