Roxane Lehmann, Ph.D.

Modern Family: Season 5, Episode 6, The Help

The Dunphy Daughters Call to Claire for Help

The Framework
“Help” (some helpful, some not so much, and some way too much) is what tied the plotlines together tonight. Gloria hires a too-good-to-be-true nanny to help out around the house even though Jay and Manny seem dead-set against it. Mitch and Cam hire Pepper to help plan their dream wedding, but Pepper’s dreams are way over-the-top. And over at the Dunphy house, Phil’s recently widowed dad Frank has come for a visit because he’s a bit down-in-the-dumps. But when Phil and Jay try to help cheer him up with a night out on the town, Frank ends up hiring a hooker – by accident.

Meanwhile, Claire is looking for something that’ll help cut down the fighting between the girls.
Claire: Tension between Haley and Alex has been getting pretty high. So our solution was to move Haley down to the basement – which we were just about to do.
Phil: When my dad came out for a weekend visit.
Claire: Two weekends ago.

Claire is right to be concerned. Anger between the sisters is spilling out of their shared bedroom into the rest of the house. It overflows into the kitchen where the rest of the family is trying to enjoy breakfast.
Alex: You’re ruining my life!
Phil: These eggs are delicious.
Haley: What life?! Get out of my room!!
Claire: I put milk in them.
Alex: It’s not your room anymore!!
Luke: Well they sure are fluffy.
Haley: Mom!!!
Claire: I’m just going to go stand out in the yard.
Haley: Seriously, get out!!!
Alex: I told you it’s not your room.

Later the girl’s outbursts continue with this.
Haley: Gross!!! Those are my socks!!
Alex: They are not! Mom!!
Claire: I’m just going to pop outside.
Phil: I should get her a rake.

And this.
Haley: Mom! I’m going to throw-up! Alex’s hair smells like cheese.
Alex: It is not cheese!!! It is cruelty free, organic shampoo with traces of churned goats’ milk!
Haley: So cheese! (taking a whiff and then holding her nose) Ugh!!! I need a bucket!!!

Flipping the Frame: My Notes
It’s a given. Siblings will fight with each other. That’s just what they do.

The best way to keep brothers and sisters from fighting is to space them at least four years a part. Obviously, there’s nothing that can be done about this now, but it’s true. Siblings close in age (like Haley and Alex) fight more, and the fights seem to intensify as soon as the youngest becomes a teen. This is so for a gazillion reasons – competition, jealousy, differences in temperament all lead to clashes.

It drives us crazy to hear two kids we love acting so hateful to each other. So we often wade into the middle of the fight to try to stop it with something like this: “Each of you tell me, one at a time, what happened.” The problem is that the minute we step in, the issue totally changes. No matter what the original battle was about, it now becomes a competition to see who can win us to their side. And if we begin to arbitrate like a judge, we promote case pleading on both sides that can be endless. Plus the more often we step in, the more likely our kids are to call for our help – just like Haley and Alex did tonight in each of their squabbles.

What’s a Mom to Do
Usually our kids can resolve their issues in their own way. Their screaming might drive us crazy, but as long as there’s no threat of physical violence or emotional abuse, we can often facilitate this best by staying out of the way. (Claire, thanks for modeling this for us tonight. You were wise to step outside instead of stepping into your daughters’ fights.)

Sometimes, though, the fighting intensifies to the point that we have to step in. Below are some tips for stepping into the fray when you can’t ignore it.

– Separate them. Send the fighters to their own corners for a cooling off period – their own bedrooms or opposite corners of the house will do. Sometimes the space and time apart seems to be all that is needed. But separating them teaches them nothing, so if we want lasting results, we’ll often need to do more.
– Reconvene with them. When things have calmed down, direct the warring parties to another neutral place – for example, the kitchen table. Sit down with them, and listen to both sides without trying to judge who’s right and who’s wrong. Try instead to clarify the problem: “It sounds like you’re mad at Alex because you think she took your socks.” Ask both kids to offer a solution that might work for everybody involved. If they can’t come up with any ideas, suggest a solution. For example, if the teens are fighting over whose clothes belong to whom, you might suggest that they keep their things separate by always hanging them up or putting them in drawers when they’re not being worn. Each might also be responsible for doing their own laundry to further minimize the mix-up.
– Reinforce the family rules. Before you all get up from the table, remind your teens of the rules for fighting fairly. For starters, this should include that nothing physical is allowed – no hitting, pushing, shoving, or hair pulling. No damaging each other’s things. And no name-calling. This is also a good opportunity to ask for your teens’ input on these rules and how they’re enforced.

The BottomLine:
Claire (to the hooker she mistakes for a therapist): I’m just at my wit’s end with these two. (Hopeful) I don’t expect you have any experience with teenagers?

It’s not always the intensity of our kids’ fights that drives us crazy. Sometimes it’s the sheer number of the clashes that give us battle fatigue.

To reduce future fighting…
– Try to be evenhanded. Teens are especially quick to pick-up on preferential treatment. Although our teens may protest whenever they feel slighted, we’re wise not to try to prove them wrong. Because we can’t. In almost every family there’s going to be one child who needs more of something – our time, or attention, or resources. So rather than trying to treat our kids all the same, it’s better to assure our kids that we’ll try to always do our best to give them each what they need.
– Hold family meetings. Get together once a week as a family to give everyone a chance to air grievances and work out solutions together. This is also a good time to praise any negotiating or compromising you’ve noticed during the week. Reinforcing their positive behavior – perhaps even with a tangible reward sometimes – can help with future battles.
– Make time for one-on-ones. It’s never easy to find time alone with each child – and it can be especially difficult in large families. But our kids tend to resent each other less (and squabble less) when they feel that we value them as individuals. When we regularly make time to give each child our undivided attention – with special excursions or a few minutes on a daily bases – we are valuing their individuality and letting them know how important each relationship is to us.
– Model fair fights. Our highest form of influence in our kids’ lives is our day-to-day modeling. And our kids learn a lot about how to deal with disputes by watching and listening to us resolve issues with our spouse. So it’s important that we get it right. (Click here to read more about this in last week’s post. Claire, you too!)

Your Parenting Experiences
Some fights are easier than others for our kids to resolve on their own. What issues tend to require you to step in when your teens squabble?

Sources: Get Out of My Life by Anthony Wolf and webmd.com/parenting

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Modern Family: Season 5, Episode 5, The Late Show

The Couples Fight In Front of Their Kids

The Framework
On tonight’s episode Jay pulls some strings to get reservations for an adults’ family-night out at a trendy, new restaurant. With all three couples trying to get there on time, someone in each household is running late – adding to the ever-present potential for bickering between the spouses.

Claire and Phil get in a quarrel about letting Luke stay home alone.
Claire: I think Luke is afraid to be left in the house alone, and he’s just pretending to be brave for you.
Phil: Honey, he’s 14! We left Alex alone when she was 10.
Claire: We didn’t leave her; we forgot her.
Phil: She was fine – physically… Plus she’s still friends with that sweet 911 operator.

Per usual, Gloria is taking forever to get ready.
Jay: Gloria is always late. Then I get mad and tell her to hurry. We yell. And it just takes longer. So [this time] I promised myself no matter how late, just to take some deep breaths and stay calm. That’s the only thing I learned in Lamaze class because we were always late.
And later, there’s this.
Jay (looking at his watch): Manny, see why your mother is taking so long. And don’t tell her I sent you.
Manny (yelling upstairs): Mom, hurry!
Jay: Don’t yell! I could have yelled!
Manny: Then why didn’t you?
Jay: Because I didn’t want to yell. I want you to go!
Manny: Why can’t you go?!
Jay: Why can’t you do what I ask?!! I’m trying to do something new here.

Meanwhile, Mitch and Cam are also busy doing battle.
Mitch (calling to Cam from the living room): How come it takes me five minutes to get ready, and you take forever?
Cam: Oh, please! I could get ready in five minutes too if I dressed like you (just before coming into the living room and discovering that they’re dressed alike).
Mitch: All right, one of us has to change. We look like twin toddlers at church. … I hate to play this card, but I was dressed first.
Cam: Oh, that’s silly! Lily, it’s time to play “Who Wore It Best?”
Lily: Nope. I’m not doing this again. I can’t.

Flipping the Frame: My Notes
We all know that it can be damaging for children to witness their parents’ fighting if it spirals into an ugly screaming match or worse. But what about the arguing of the intensity we saw tonight? Almost all kids see this kind of bickering. But is it really okay?

Child psychologists have begun looking for answers. And a growing number of studies provide some guidance on what matters when we fight with our spouse when our kids are around.

We’ve know for years that kids are like Geiger counters – that their sense of wellbeing fluctuates with how well their parents are getting along. A recent study actually showed that kids’ emotional health and security are more affected by their parents’ relationship than by their own direct relationship with their parents.

In another study, parents were asked to make note of every argument – no matter how small. It turned out that the typical married couple was having around eight disputes a day, according to the moms. (Dads said it was slightly less.) The couples said that they expressed anger towards each other two to three times as often as they showed affection to one another. And, though, the parents said they often try to shield their kids from their arguing, kids were still witness to it 45% of the time.

What’s a Mom to Do

So should we try to avoid ever arguing with our spouse in front of our kids? The answer to that is complicated. But child psychologists who study this issue tend to say no. Most agree that it’s okay for our kids to witness our arguments as long as we can manage to argue in a healthy way. Below are some tips to help us keep it that way:

– Keep it respectful and constructive. For starters, this means avoiding insults, name-calling, or piling on by dredging up issues from the past. And it should never even come close to anything physical. (This includes exploding pop bottles, Mitch.)
– Stay in control. Don’t let things get too heated. If we or our spouse is starting to yell or swear, we need to put the fight on hold and give ourselves some cooling off time.
– Avoid the silent treatment. Witnessing this can be worse for our kids than arguing. Because it tends to make kids think things are worse than they are.
– Keep an eye on the kids. Look for signs that they are getting upset or worried. This includes crying, obviously. But it also includes freezing up, trying to intervene, or behaving in ways that draw attention away from the fight – like, for example, Luke falling off a teetering bar stool in a storm of Cheetos. (Granted, this may have been more about physics than psyche.)
– Never draw the kids into the fight. (Listen up, Jay. It’s not okay to send Manny to do your dirty work.) And we should never encourage our kids to take sides (Cam, this means no more playing “Who Wore It Best?” You’re right, Lily, you can’t do this again.)
– Be a united front. Some topics should always be out of our kids’ earshot. This includes disagreements about parenting decisions. (Claire and Phil, I’m talking to you now.) Our kids depend on our sturdy presence. So it’s best to settle parenting disputes out of the kids’ earshot and come up with and present a unified front. This is especially important for teens who have a knack for noticing and using our parenting disputes to their advantage.
– Don’t take it upstairs. When we pause mid-battle to take it upstairs – to spare our kids – we actually might be making things worse. Especially, if we don’t show them or tell them that we’ve worked it out. Our kids need to know that we’ve reached some kind of resolution.

BottomLine
Jay: Gloria!
Gloria: What?!
Jay: I think the new earrings are really going to tie your new outfit together.
Gloria (blowing Jay a kiss): You’re so sweet!
Manny (to Jay): Wow! That was very mature of you.
Jay: Yeah – well, I’m a lot older now then when she started getting dressed.

Many experts say that if we can keep it calm and under control it can actually be helpful for our kids to see us argue with our spouse. After all, our kids are going to have disagreements with their peers and eventually their co-workers. Seeing us fight fairly and constructively and come to a resolution gives our kids a model for compromising and settling differences. Kids whose parents don’t argue in front of them miss out on this lesson in conflict resolution

What our kids see happening between us and our spouses at the end of our fights is crucial though. This is true even when our arguing is far away from the kids. Even if they’ve not heard or seen anything, they’re still aware of it. Normal chatter and genuine friendly, affectionate talk alleviates anxiety in our kids. (Good job, Jay!)

But even more crucial is what goes on when we’re not arguing. The proportion of affection to fighting words our kids witness matters. And this is something that the parents in all three Modern Family households might want to think about.

Your Parenting Experiences
Do you and your spouse sometimes argue in front of your kids? If so, how do your kids tend to respond?

Sources: Nurture Shock by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman; The Family that Fights Together by Andrea Peterson

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