It is normal to disagree with one another from time to time. Intermittent conflict is part of family life. Family members can disagree when they have different beliefs or views that clash with the interests of others. However, family conflict can be stressful and damage the relationships among family members especially when the members are prone to misunderstanding one another and jumping to wrongly skewed conclusions. The result may be unresolved conflicts which manifest in continuous arguments and end in resentment. Intense family conflict can lead to break-ups and dissolution of marriages or separation of siblings and everlasting disunity even in important matters that affect the family members.
Family conflicts arise for various reasons. Finance and jobs are the main causes of family conflicts. Failure to secure a good job that earns the breadwinner significant income to pay for bills, service mortgages or pay rent, buy food and fund recreation activities for the family members is the main cause of conflict between the spouses and by extension to the siblings. Most often, one of the spouses will tend to believe that the other spouse is spending the money elsewhere and is not caring for them and begin to quarrel. Also, where one of the spouses is engaged with a job that keeps him or her away from the other spouse and the children will feel neglected and incite conflict. Similarly, if the breadwinner loses the job, the family members are likely to be stressed and quarrel as their future financial situation becomes uncertain.
Apart from finances and jobs, family conflicts could arise from sibling rivalry. Siblings will naturally compete with one another for parental approval or attention. Such competition may involve causing harm to the others, teasing one another or tattling on. Either of such practices will eventually result in conflict among the siblings especially where the parent does not intervene and uphold equality among the siblings through showing equal love and acceptance for all.
In addition to finance, jobs and sibling rivalry, lack of patience and understanding among the family members is another cause of conflict. Sustainability of families requires patience from both members since there are events that occur along the way which could be unfavorable. For instance, at some point, a bread winner may lose his or her job. Family members ought to be patient and understand the situation as they await a resolution to the situation. Most often, the other spouse would be impatient and rush to conclude that the family has lost direction leading to quarrels and conflict in the family.
Since family conflicts are inevitable, there should be ways of resolving or avoiding the conflicts to avoid the adverse effects of these conflicts. One of the ways to resolving family conflicts is being patient and slow to quarrel. Holding the tongue for a few seconds can be a great step towards resolving a conflict. Spouses can calm down and think of better ways to respond to a situation or a developing conflict. With patience, a better thought solution can be offered to resolve a conflict then quickly rushing to fight with one another. Also, family members can avoid conflicts by getting hard on their problems and not just blaming one another. Avoiding blame game opens room for concessions and allows the family members to work together in finding solutions to their problems.
Overall, family conflicts can easily be predicted as they develop from obvious issues such as finance, jobs or sibling rivalry. As a family head, one ought to keep track of these issues and be in the leading line to offer solutions to such problems before the conflict arises. Patience and understanding are crucial for all family members if conflicts are to be avoided.