What is parental conflict?
What is Parental Conflict?
Some level of arguing and conflict between parents is a normal part of everyday life, and most families can resolve their disagreements. However there is strong evidence that inter-parental conflict, that is frequent, intense, and poorly resolved can have a significant negative impact on children’s emotional wellbeing ,mental health, and long-term life chances.
It is important for professionals to understand the Reducing Parental Conflict (RPC) programme is aimed at conflict below the threshold of domestic abuse.
Damaging conflict (below this threshold) between parents can be expressed in many ways such as:
- Verbal aggression
- silence
- lack of respect
- lack of resolution
Conflict can affect children in all types of parental relationships, including:
- parents who are in a relationship, whether married or not
- parents who have separated or divorced.
- biological and stepparents
- other family members playing a parenting role.
- foster and adoptive parents
- same-sex couples
Difference between Parental Conflict and Domestic Abuse
When working with parental conflict in a relationship, practitioners should continue to be vigilant and confident there are no indicators of domestic abuse.
Important indicators are : Fear, imbalance of power , controlling behaviour, physical and sexual violence .
If there are signs of controlling behaviour that adversely affects one person in a relationship, this can be a sign of coercive control, and an indicator of an abusive relationship.
Parental Conflict can also escalate into Domestic abuse due to complex factors such as: addiction to alcohol / drugs, unemployment, sever financial pressure, mental health issues.
In cases where domestic abuse is a concern, at any stage, safeguarding policies and procedures must be followed to manage any potential risk of harm.
If you have any safeguarding concerns, please contact the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH).