The Impacts Of Fighting Husbands And Wives On Their Children

 

The family is comprised of husband, wife, and child, or children.  The home is an indispensable necessity for all people,  old or young,  rich or poor,  child or parent. The  parents are the ones who provide the homes and indeed everything for their children. The parents do not only provide all the basic needs of life for their children, they are also the eyes through which the children see the world.   

Now, when the parents whom the children rely upon for the provision of basic life necessities, and look upon as good  examples to emulate, begin to quarrel and fight themselves in the presence of those children whom they are training, almost all the good characters they taught the children will begin to thaw. The children will be confused and begin to doubt the credibility of what their parents had taught them in the past. The ability to do what their parents had earlier taught them to do will begin to wane drastically. 

Therefore, the impacts of parents' lifestyles on children are so inestimable. If their parents' lifestyles are good, the children's lifestyles will tend to be good. If their  parents are at daggers-drawn to each other, their children will be greatly influenced negatively too. So, we can affirmatively posit that fighting, quarelling, and resentment between husbands and wives affect children's development adversely in the short and long terms. But, the truth remains that since everybody is not the same, the impacts of fighting between husbands and wives has varying impacts on children's development from one child to the other. 

In a nutshell, let us consider the following ways that fighting between husbands and wives affect their children's development:

1. Children whose parents fight themselves feel very ashamed of it. They are not too free to relate with other friends in the neighbourhood. Residents in the neighbourhood always make mockery of them as children of fighting parents. If they do anything erroneously like other children, it will attract severe condemnation and rebuke since everybody knows the lifestyles of their parents. They are not bold to do things like their colleagues in the neighborhood. Their parents' fighting behaviours make their children extremely aggressive, intolerant, and cruel. In one seminar which I attended in Lagos, one professor who delivered a speech said that he once saw a young boy who put his younger sister's head into his armpit, and began to hit her head furiously. He entreated and told the boy not to deal with his younger sister with such degree of cruelty. How did the boy react to that professor? He told the professor that he was teaching his sibling what he learnt from his father. In other words, the boy's father beats his wife (boy's mother) by putting her head into his armpit. Who knows the frequency of their fighting in a week, month or year? So, what the boy did to his younger sister was a transfer of what his father does to their mother. The best way to train a child is by showing him/ her good examples. The shortest way of destroying a child is also by showing him/ her bad examples. All children are human "photocopying machines". They quickly and expertly copy everything their parents do! So, fighting parents have already failed in their responsibilities of child development! They have only succeeded in breeding piercing thorns for mankind in the name of bearing children. They have raised bullies to trouble other pupils and students at schools. Children raised by fighting parents transfer their families' violence and aggression to their peers and playgroups at schools. They always disobey teachers and school authorities thinking that they are doing the right thing! Due to the nature of the quarrelsome families that they came from, they do not find it easy at all to socialize freely with others. They are usually vulnerable to smoking and drinking and even drug addiction because they want something to make them happy and to forget their broken family foundation. From smoking and drinking addiction, they graduate into  cocaine and other hard drugs addiction. From there, they can become drug  barons and problems to the world. It is clear to each and everyone of us that children of fighting parents do not most times excel in their academic works because of distractions from their homes and other family problems. They are not happy people because their parents bring shame to them in the neighborhood from time to time. I know one woman who fights her husband constantly. On many occasions, she took the fight from their home to Church Camp Ground where her husband went to hear the gospel. In the misdst of several thousands of people, she held her husband's clothes and began to give him blows which the man did not return back to her. In fact, some of her children were present at the scene. They wept and begged her to leave their father alone. On other occasions, she went to Church on Sundays and began fighting her husband, thereby disrupting the Church's Sunday School lessons

 On one other occasion, she went to the secondary school where her three children were schooling to fight her husband who went there to pay their children's school fees. She loves to disgrace her husband in public. As a result of her bad conducts to her husband and children, the children rebelled against her by refusing to continue with their education. One Sunday afternoon, her first daughter boldly and defiantly went out with a boy whom the parents do not know. She was prepared to fight with her mother and father because they have made them laughing stocks in the neighborhood. 

2. Is it not when a child has peace of mind that he/ she begins to study his/ her books? The children of fighting parents most times have reduced cognitive development. The enormous stress from their parents' failed marriage relationship causes retarded brain development to them. They are unable to think and reason critically to arrive at good judgments, inferences,  or conclusions. It is not that they possess low intelligent quotient. No. It's not so! It is just that the regularity of stress from their fighting parents has impaired their ability to read their books. They are unable to compare, contrast, and evaluate between two variable elements to make sound decisions. The children of fighting parents encounter endless memory deficit and poor academic performances. 

3. The children of fighting husbands and wives suffer from chronic psychological and emotional impacts. They feel unsafe when their parents are fighting against themselves with knives and bottles and other array of weaponry. They cannot regulate their own emotions. Hence, they are always sad, irritated, withdrawn, and antagonistic. I have seen cases where husbands and wives fought for five and more days without a break. When they return from work every evening, they  begin fighting. The children will cry out so loud and beg them to stop. But, they would not accept.  Thus, their children suffered from depression and anxiety disorder. Their children wished earnestly that their parents had lived in peace and harmony so that they too may have peace and safety in their lives. But, it was not as they wished. The children from any home where there is frequent fighting and quarreling between husband and wife feel that they are not lucky and loved like other children. It affects them in everything that they do.

4. In fact, it is on record that children from families where there is frequent conflict most times end up adopting the quarrelsome and fighting behaviours of their parents who did  not truly love their marriage partners. Consider the case of the boy who was beating his younger sister exactly the way his father beats his mother. He has learnt the evil behaviour from his father. He is going to use it against any woman that he is going to marry. When his would-be-wife would see him for the first time, she won't know that she is taking a trip to hell! She will dance and jubilate that she has found a man to spend her lifetime with. She will think that she is going to enjoy a marriage of bliss like other people, whereas it is not so. She won't know that her husband-to-be is a lion in  a cage awaiting to be loosed.

Can you see that? Nobody knows where his father learnt his own evil trade of beating his wife in the most gruesome manner? The father has indeliberately taught and transferred it to his son and other children. That is why young boys and girls who are going into marriages should make cursory enquiries into the families their intending partners are coming from. What are their trackrecords in terms of faithfulness to their husbands and wives? Are there records of divorces in the family you are going to have husband or wife? Did your intending partner's parents or grandparents divorce their partners? Once the young man or woman neglects to ask these salient questions, he or she will be surprised at the outcome of that marriage adventure! Children from fighting parents cannot easily make lasting friendships with people, whether men or women at adulthood.

In summary, it is advisable that intending young men and women who want marriage partners should know the history of the family of the person that they want to marry. Some husbands and wives fight with knives and other dangerous things. They want to end their lives without minding that they have children whom they should take care of. Who will train their children if they die in the process of fighting themselves. That is why their children always strongly believe that their parents do not love them with a perfect heart. When I was in the junior secondary school, I knew one beautiful woman that her husband killed when he was beating her. Her three children were all under eight years of age. The man was arrested and tried for first degree murder, and hanged.  Do not go into marriage relationship blindly. If not, you will see what you don't expect. To be forewarned is to be forearmed! 

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