Fighting In Front of a Child
Reader’s Question
Recently my sister and I, both college educated, had a huge verbal and physical confrontation in front of my 4 yr old. My sister and I actually had about 30 seconds of shoving and hitting each other. After the fact, completely stunned at what had taken place, we realized my child had witnessed the entire thing and was crying. Both my sister and I told my child that we were just “horse playing, playing rough,” however, since the traumatic experience my child cries and says out of a clear blue sky that he did not like our rough play. What can I do to help alleviate this situation and prevent any long term consequences of my foolishness with my child?
Thanks.
Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply
While a four-year-old child may witness a variety of adult incidents, they have little to no way to interpret that incident. The child doesn’t know if it’s an attack, rough play, practicing martial arts, etc. As adults, you define the event for the child. Now that you’ve labeled it “playing rough”, you’ll need to slowly change the definition of “playing rough”. As you play with your child or other children, mention that playing rough involves hitting or shoving, and we don’t play rough in our family — we just play. Eventually, the child will hit someone or something, at which time we let them know they are playing rough and we don’t do that in the family.
This event will not have long-term consequences if we gradually water-down the emotional component of the memory. I’ve written an article on this topic entitled Emotional Memory. It’s available on this website. It would also be helpful if the child could see you and your sister behaving well and loving around each other.
