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PLEASE Don’t Fight!

By Sahrish Jalaluddin

It was the annual day function of my school, I was delighted to hear:

Second position goes to “BILAL”

My little bro was so glad on his achievement in class 2. He was very excited throughout the way to home. He was repeatedly saying that

It would be a surprise for them, mama and papa will be very happy.

But………… I was a bit confused, I was just praying that

Oh God! Please! at least this time my mom and dad shouldn’t be fighting.

At last, when we finally reached home, Bilal was astonished to see our parents busy in quarrel. All his happiness turned to sorrows and he was just crying and saying

Afia baaji, I didn’t expected this, they don’t care for us, why don’t we leave our home and just run away from this cruel world.

With the days passing by we got adjusted to the environment. Every thing changed, the love and harmony which I and my brother used to share was also ruined. Academic progress of my brother and I also went down. School complains were like salt in our meals. We begun to think that

Why its all happening to us only? It doesn’t happen to others! Others are so happy with their parents and we are unable to even share our feelings with them.

Besides the love of our parents we also lost many things like our confidence, our trust on world, joy and much more. Our life was totally changed……………

Story of Afia and Bilal is not a new one. There are many children who are suffering not because they have done something wrong but, because their parents are unwilling to hear and understand each other.

It is of prime importance that whats the reason of misunderstandings between the couple but what really matters is their way of handling the misunderstanding or the problem. There are some couples who always try not to involve in any conflict in front of their children, on the other hand some couples don’t even care whether their children listens to their conflict or not and what their impacts on them are.

It is very awful to say that whether parents perform any act of disagreement in front of their children or not, children are affected. Some elder children notice tension in their homes, while very younger children don’t realize. Besides this, they also show many behavioral problems. They show anger, misbehavior and sometimes come with the complain of fight with their friends or hitting them. Children do these acts because they have learned from their parents that only solution to any problem is to solve it through fighting.

Another reason could be that they are seeking attention of their parents towards them with the intention that their parents will not fight with each other and will take care of them. Sometimes the teacher may call you at home saying

Your child’s progress is continuously going down, kindly pay attention.

Stress in the mind of children losses their interest from studies, sports and other activities. Simultaneously, they also feel ashamed of themselves that all these things happening are just because of them and they start to live in guilt.

In addition, Hoelscher suggests that their self esteem also compromises and experience inferiority complex when they watch other children living happily with their parents. You may hear these children saying in front of their mummy

Mummy! Papa is very bad, he never buys me ice cream, I am your son and I don’t want him.

Or it may be like children saying bad words about their mother in front of their father. They just don’t know why they are doing this but they feel satisfied and with one parent and wants to gain trust of them.

All these behaviors not only end with the end of parental conflict, but leave an ever lasting effect on their personality. The only way to avoid these issues and keep your child away from these stresses, is just understand each other and never involve directly or indirectly your child in conflict.