When your California marriage ends, you may feel a high level of disdain or contempt for your one-time partner. Yet, the more contentious the relationship between you and your child’s other p[errant is, the more likely your child is to feel the effects of it.
According to Psychology Today, when parents have a high level of conflict between them, children experience emotional, psychological and other negative effects.
How parental conflict affects children
Studies show that, when you and your child’s other parent fight with one another on a regular basis, it often affects your child’s mental health. Parental conflicts also have the capacity to impact your son or daughter’s self-esteem and the stability of his or her future romantic relationships. Also, it is worth noting that it is the high level of conflict that tends to affect kids, rather than a divorce. When kids have married parents who engage in conflicts on a regular basis, those kids experience higher levels of anxiety and depression than kids whose parents have high levels of conflict, but divorce.
How to reduce conflict between you and the other parent
Often, a parenting plan helps eliminate future conflicts before they begin. Even if a parenting plan, or a legal document that outlines how you both plan to raise the child you share, does not help you avoid all conflicts, it may give you an agreed-upon way to try to resolve the conflict before it gets worse.
You may also find that having someone to talk to, such as a counselor, may help you work through your own emotions, which in turn may reduce conflict between you and your child’s other parent.