How you can model healthy conflict communication for your teen in your own relationship
Teens observe your relationship the most. See the next conflict you have with your partner as an opportunity to show your teen a healthier way of communicating negative feelings in conflict.
As much as you can try to avoid conflict, it is something you inevitably have to face in any type of relationship. What makes conflicts difficult to navigate is the way they bring out big, intense emotions that one may not have the tools to handle and process. Then, these emotions can come out as criticism, yelling, or name-calling, which all slowly break down any relationship. As your teen develops more relationships with peers and other adults, learning how to process and resolve conflict in a healthy manner is a critical skill they need to manage communication with others in the future.
The Four Horsemen of Communication
Research has found that it is not differences in background, age, or opinions that make or break a relationship, but rather how one communicates during conflict that does. The relationship your teens have observed the most is the one with your partner. As a result, one of the best ways to teach your teen about conflict resolution is to model healthy methods in your relationship with your partner.
Famous psychologist and renowned marriage researcher Dr. John Gottman penned “The Four Horsemen” as the 4 communication behaviors in conflict between you and your partner that will predict and influence the health of the relationship: criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, and contempt.
Gottman found that when couples these behaviors during their difficult moments, they trigger distance and isolation between them. If there isn’t successful "repair" over time after these behaviors, they will turn toward each other less and less. It is unlikely you can avoid these behaviors altogether. However, being mindful of our habits and knowing how to make repairs afterwards will make the likelihood lower.
This week, we’re going to go through each “Horseman” behavior and share how you can model repair for your teen if you catch yourself showing it while in conflict with your partner.
1. If you use criticism...
Criticism is the act of noticing a problem within your life or the relationship and turning it into a commentary of your partner's character trait flaws. Criticism is different from complaint, as complaints focus on the actual issue. For example:
Criticism: "I am so tired, and you never care about that. You always leave the dishes in the sink. (uses of “never”, “always”, and focuses on the partner)
Complaint: "I am so tired at the end of the day, and it is so frustrating for me to walk into a sink full of dishes." (about how you feel and how the issue affects you)
How to model repair: Bringing up a topic softly, within the first 3 minutes, can predict a higher likelihood of resolution. A gentle startup sounds like:
"Hey honey, I wanted to let yo know that when I come home at the end of the day and see the dishes in the sink (what you noticed), I feel so tired and frustrated (sharing your feelings). I really need to walk into a peaceful environment. (what you need)."
2. If you get defensive...
Defensiveness is a reaction to perceived criticism. Although you want to defend yourself if you’re feeling attacked, this approach tends to only escalate the conflict if the critical partner does not back down or apologize. There is a time and a place to talk about your own perception, but it's not usually in the immediate moment when someone brings up a request. Defensiveness sounds like:
Overexplaining: "Well, I would have cooked tonight, but when I wanted to, the ingredients I needed weren’t there, and then I got a work call..."
Taking on a victim mentality: "You are always judging me!"
Counter-criticizing: "I will start doing the dishes when you start taking care of the lawn better. You are always ignoring that."
How to model repair: Try taking responsibility for your part, even if you truly believe it isn’t entirely your fault. The focus is that you want to repair your team partnership. You can also try to validate their own perception and reality: "You're right the dishes are a mess (validation). I didn't do them even though I said I would."
3. If you start to stonewall...
Stonewalling is when the listener withdraws from the interaction, shuts down, and simply stops responding to their partner. This is a way of avoiding confrontation and can look like tuning out, turning away, or acting busy. It's likely you are in a state of physiological flooding having detected a threat and the parts of our brain responsible for relational behaviors goes offline.
How to model repair: When you are physiologically flooded, it is not possible to have a productive conversation. So when you start feeling you’re going offline, it's important for both people in the conversation to agree to take a break first, so that you can self-soothe and come back for the conversation. This sounds like: “I feel really overwhelmed right now and don’t think I can have this conversation in a meaningful way. I need some time and space to settle down. Can we take a break and come back to this in an hour?”
4. If you use words of contempt...
Contempt is criticism supercharged because it takes a one-up position of superiority. It’s when you use shame and mean-spirited sarcasm to put someone down like "Oh of course, I walk into a filthy house after a long day. What else would I expect from someone like you? I should have known when I met your family how lazy you'd be."
How to model repair: There is usually long-standing resentment or betrayal within the relationship for contempt to appear. To repair this way of communicating, there needs to be new communication skills to discuss your negative feelings, like focusing on narrating your inner world than attacking the other person: “Right now, I can feel myself being so angry. I want to say so many angry things to you, but I know it won't go well. I really need us to figure out how to fix this." Or in a less emotionally charged time, try to build more gratitude and appreciation by expressing things your partner is doing right as much as you can.
Question of the Week:
For the dinner table, car ride, or whenever you get to sit down with your teen
When you get into a disagreement with someone, how do you usually make sure you guys are good again?
Reflection of the Week:
A moment for yourself to slow down, reflect, and Cherish
How was conflict resolution modeled for me when I was growing up?
About Cherish
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