Arguing in Front of Children May Have an Effect on the Way They Think, Study Reveals

They may ignore you when you tell them to clean their room, or do the dishes, or do their homework, but when children hear mommy and daddy arguing, they are all ears. A new study has revealed that what children hear during an argument is not good for them.

According to ABC News, Dr. Gordon Harold, a researcher at Cardiff University in Cardiff, Wales told Good Morning America's parenting correspondent Ann Pleshette Murphy that parents should be very careful when arguing in front of their children. "It would be unrealistic to say that, you know, parents should never argue or should never disagree in front of their children," says Harold. "Arguments and disagreements are a natural part of all relationships."

To be able to reach their conclusion, the researchers first categorized the participating families as either high- or low-conflict, based on surveys filled out by the mothers. The children then looked at pictures of couples with different emotions which included anger, happiness, and neutral while the researchers measured their brain activity using an electroencephalogram (EEG).

The brain of the children that belong to the high-conflict group reacted more strongly to the angry-looking picture of couples compared to those who belong to the low-conflict group. The same reaction was observed when kids looked at happy couples but had been asked to choose the angry-looking ones. The researchers also said that they have seen these reactions being carried over to the homes, Parents.com reported.

"They're being watchful in the home in the same way that they're watching for angry faces in the research setting," explains study author Alice Schermerhorn, assistant professor in UVM's Department of Psychological Science. She adds about the reaction to the happy looking couples: "The pattern suggests children from high-conflict homes, by training their brains to be vigilant, process signs of interpersonal emotion, either anger or happiness, differently than children from low-conflict homes."