No matter how much you love your family, tensions and disagreements are bound to arise from time to time. There are different ways to address family disagreements, and these are referred to as conflict styles. Constructive conflict, in which issues are addressed in a respectful and open manner, is not generally harmful to family relationships. However, there are other conflict styles that can cause lasting damage to individual relationships and the family itself.
Power Assertive Conflict
Power assertive conflict arises when the dynamic of the family is akin to a dictatorship, with one family member dominating all conflict and decision-making. The dominant family member will often end family conflict simply by demanding that it stop immediately. This is commonly seen in relationships between parents and children, when a parent will dominate the child with the aim of compelling a certain behavior from the child. This conflict style is certainly time-saving, as disagreements are settled on the spot by the dominant family member. However, this mode of conflict fails to address or even acknowledge the underlying reasons for the disagreement. This, in turn, means that the less powerful family members will likely feel resentful toward the dominant member, whose judgments may be hasty or unfair. Continuing disagreements and grudges that are unaddressed in a power assertive conflict are very likely to resurface in future family arguments.
Scapegoating
Scapegoating is essentially a form of bullying, and occurs when one family member is blamed by another for circumstances that are outside her control. These circumstances may be real or imaginary. The family member who is scapegoated by one or more family members may suffer lasting psychological damage as a result of this cruel and unfair victimization. Examples of scapegoating include a child being blamed for interrupting a parent's career, "If you hadn't been born I could have been a ballerina," or elderly family members being blamed for their age-related physical care needs. Often a child will be made a scapegoat for the frustrations of one or both parents, but it is also possible for a child to scapegoat a parent or for one spouse to scapegoat the other. Scapegoating is often employed as a conflict tactic by individuals who feel generally powerless and therefore look for others, such as a family member, to blame for uncontrollable events and situations.
Conflict Avoidance
Some families eschew open conflict, hoping that issues will resolve without the need for an argument with a loved one. A person who grew up in a family where a lot of arguing, shouting, scapegoating and power assertive conflicts occurred may genuinely wish to avoid confrontation and conflict in his adult relationships. However, when grievances and problems are neither discussed nor resolved, a kind of passive family conflict can emerge. In such scenarios, bottled-up frustrations and anger are directed into petty bickering and habitual sniping about unrelated matters. Indirect, or "passive-aggressive," actions such as going behind a family member's back are hallmarks of conflict avoidance, as these tactics cause hurt and hint at a possible grievance without open discussion.
Coalition Building
Coalition building occurs when family members on opposing sides of a disagreement attempt to recruit other family members to take sides in the dispute. Coalition building is frequently seen when couples divorce and a parent tries to make the children of the family sympathetic to his side of the argument. For this reason, many divorce settlements now include clauses prohibiting parents from bad-mouthing their former spouses in front of their children. Although coalition building can be a destructive style of conflict, there are also examples of coalition building as a positive force. For example, when parents present a united front to children regarding behavior or adherence to household rules, this is effective in managing the children's behavior.
References
- Marriage & Family Encyclopaedia: Conflict: Couple, Family and Parent-Child Relationships
- JSTOR: Child Development: Power Assertion by the Parent and Its Impact on the Child
- The Gerontologist: The Aged as Scapegoat
- All Law: Don't Bad-Mouth Divorcing Parents In Front of Children; Criticizing a Parent Also Hurts Kids
