It’s a typical Friday night and mom and dad are at it again. Little Jill covers her ears. Billy runs under the table and tries to hide and Angie cries.

The kids are stressed and can’t take their parents constant fighting. All that stress is physical and emotionally hurting them. Their heart rates beat faster. Their blood pressure rises and their bodies are flooded with stress hormones, depleting their immune systems and making them more susceptible to infections and illness.

Their learning is also impacted. Their grade point averages drop and they do poorly on tests. All the conflict is predictive of academic failure. And the more intense the conflict, the worse children do. In fact, teachers will tell you that kids from high conflict homes are more likely to be expelled from school, become pregnant as teens and live in poverty.

Emotionally, living in a hostile home puts kids at risk for psychiatric disorders like depression and anxiety. They have trouble regulating their emotions, knowing how to calm themselves down and can’t attend as well to others. All that bickering creates a powerful sense of a loss of control. And those kids take their childhood stress into their adults lives and relationships.

Bottom line, when parents constantly fight and have high conflict in their homes, kids suffer. Also, please note, it isn’t divorce that does the damage as much as the high conflict fighting. So, if you want to help your kids, stop fighting. Learn to deal with your partner is ways that are respectful and honoring. Solve your problems without all the intensity and drama. Your kids’ physical, emotional and relationship health depends on it!