"The children don't notice"

You keep it down. You don't shout, mostly, and you take it to the kitchen, and the children are in the other room with the television on. So the belief is that the one row is between the two of you and the children are out of it, and it's a belief you need, because the alternative is another thing to feel bad about.

Mark Cummings, Marcie Goeke-Morey and Lauren Papp had parents in a hundred and sixteen families, with children between eight and sixteen, keep diaries of their conflicts at home, including the ones in front of the children, and record how the children reacted. The children weren't reacting to whether there was a row. They were reacting to how it was done. Some tactics distressed them, threats, insults, hostility in the voice or the face, defensiveness, one parent walking off. Other tactics made them feel more secure, calm discussion, support, affection. And the children's reactions in the moment were linked to how they were doing generally.

Two things follow. The first is that children notice, including through a wall, including at eight, and what they notice isn't the topic. They don't care about the dishwasher. They notice the tone and the walking off, and they notice whether it ended or just stopped. The second is more useful. A row handled well in front of children isn't harmful on that evidence. Calm discussion was on the secure list. What children need to see isn't two parents who never disagree. It's two parents who disagree and can handle it.

Put that next to the fresh case. The fresh case, with the record open and the drift to the two sentences and the different rooms afterwards, is the distressing kind, and it's the kind children get to see fifty times, because it's the one row. The short version from chapter 22, ten minutes, the name said, the costume dealt with, and the two of you in the same room afterwards, is the kind on the other list. You don't have to hide the row from the children. You have to handle it in a way you'd be content for them to see, and the method in this book was designed with that in mind.

If the instance has already gone the other way in front of them, the earlier book Not in front of the children is about the same-day repair, and it applies here too. What you say afterwards, in their hearing, about how the two of you sorted it, is part of what they learn.