Roxane Lehmann, Ph.D.

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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Modern Family: Season 5, Episode 4, Farm Strong

Everybody Has a Sensitive Side

The Framework
Members from every family “got in-touch with their sensitive side” tonight. Alex begrudges losing to Jay in “Words with Friends.” Gloria has qualms about getting older. Even Claire seems reflective as she thinks back on how her mother never attended any of her things as a kid. But nobody’s sensitivity matched that of Phil or Cam.

Claire and Phil, tired of watching Luke sit on the bench, skip out of his soccer tournament and then become guilt-ridden by their decision. At least Phil did:
I killed a bunch of baby birds. … and now the mom is just staring at me. … None of this would have happened if we’d gone to Luke’s game. … We’re terrible parents for not going.
And later: The universe punished me. I did something awful to a bunch of baby crows.
Manny (listening-in): Actually it’s not a “bunch” of crows. It’s called a “murder.”
Phil: I know what I did!

Meanwhile, Cam’s sister Pameron whirls into town, bringing news of her engagement to Cam’s first boy-crush and the farm family’s drama with her:
The whole family said you wouldn’t take it well. … Everyone knows, Cam. You’re not farm strong. … You’re weak and weepy. That’s why we can never say anything to you because we know you’ll crumble into a big heaping mess.

Pam sets Cam up to become – well … weak and weepy. Cam is right: She can be meaner than a barn owl at sunset.

Flipping the Frame: My Notes
We all have a sensitive side – a side that causes us to pay alert attention, that nudges us to think and feel deeply about what we’ve noticed, and makes us vulnerable to feelings of remorse. But some of us are more sensitive than others.

The very name Farm Strong implies that variations in sensitivity come from differences in our growing-up environments. Not long ago most scientists would have agreed. Sensitivity (and temperament in general) was believed to be mostly due to nurture rather than nature. However, years of research data since indicate that a substantial part of who we are is determined by our genes, our brains, and our nervous system. One large study (begun over two decades ago and still going on today) followed kids from infancy through adolescence and into adulthood. Based on a forty-five minute evaluation of four-month-olds, researchers were able to predict whether babies were more likely to turn into sensitive introverts or extroverts. When exposed to things like popping balloons, colorful mobiles, and the scent of alcohol on a cotton swab, about 20% of the babies were highly reactive. They cried loudly and wildly waved their arms and legs. About 40% of the babies stayed quiet and calm. And the remaining 40% landed somewhere in-between. Interestingly, it was the high-reactive babies who were likely to develop into quiet teens with a tendency to be shy, good at schoolwork, watchful, and prone to worry. These tendencies didn’t disappear in adulthood.

BottomLine

Claire (to Luke): You might want to go to the game without us tonight. …
Phil: But it’s totally up to you. Whatever you want. Because we love you very much.
Claire: Right. You can either ride with your teammates like the LA Kings or you can ride with us like Gloria and Grandpa take Joe to play dates. Professional athlete; little poopy baby; your call.
Luke: I’ll get a ride with Max.
Claire: I love that kid!
Phil: Can you imagine how easy our lives would be if it was just him? I mean…
Alex (walking by): I know what you mean.

Some teens, like Alex, are more sensitive to their environment – they seem to see and feel things more. These teens have especially excitable amygdala or emotional brains. But teens in general – regardless of their fundamental temperament – have more excitable emotional brains than the rest of us.

Recently researchers ran a study to compare how adults and teens process social signals. They found that in adults the frontal lobes (their rational brain) and emotional brain work together to make sophisticated judgments when interpreting social signals. Teens on the other hand – especially younger teens – relied heavily on their emotional brains when identifying emotions. They responded with gut reactions to emotional stimuli. And one of the most common mistakes made by teens was to mistake fear or worry for anger.

The bottom line is our teens don’t see what we see when they interpret our interactions with them. They often see anger and aggression when none exists.

So what’s a mom to do?

In the book Anger by Carol Travis there’s a story about a Bengali cobra that provides some clues. The cobra has a nasty habit of biting villagers who cross his path. Finally, a swami – a man who had achieved a high level of enlightenment – convinces the cobra that biting is wrong. The cobra promises to stop biting at once, and does. But, alas, it’s not long before the village boys grow unafraid of the snake and start to abuse it. When the battered snake complains to the swami that this is what keeping his promise has brought him, the swami replies: I told you not to bite. But I did not tell you not to hiss.

Sometimes we moms need to a hiss – to warn or to show our disapproval. We all have areas in our lives that need improving. Really loving someone means you care enough to address these areas. This is especially true with teens. They’re counting on us for guidance. But even when our intentions are good, our guidance isn’t always helpful – instead it creates anger, resentment, and a desire for revenge in our teens. Because our teens mistake our hiss for a bite.

Our teens’ emotional brains are a lot like an exposed tooth root. Even the slightest sensation is exaggerated. So we’re wise to be especially careful to relay our criticism as a hiss meant to help rather than a biting personal attack:
– Helpful criticism is done face-to-face and in private.
– It deals with the specific problem at hand instead of piling on all the things we’re unhappy about.
– And it doesn’t judge or categorize the teen by labeling them. Labeling our teens puts them on the defensive, making them no longer receptive to what we have to say to them.

And when our teens flair-up in anger, we’re at our best if we can minimize the attack on our senses by taking it as a hiss rather than a bite. We may be shaken by their cutting remarks as they challenge a statement or decision we made. And if their words are not acceptable, we need to let them know that. But we also must try to listen to their meaning. And what they’re trying to say is often quite simple: Respect me. My views are important too.

Everybody has a sensitive side – especially teens. But take heart. Those researchers studying how teens process social signals followed the kids for years and found some good news: The teens’ prefrontal regions became more active and their judgments more accurate as they matured.

Your Parenting Experiences
As a baby my daughter was like those high-reactive babies in that study. As a teen she shared some of the traits we see in Alex. My son, on the other hand, was a much calmer baby and easy-going as a teen – more like Luke. What about your teens? Are they more sensitive or more easy-going? Could you have predicted it from their demeanor as a baby?

Sources: Quiet: The Power of Introverts by Susan Cain

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