How do you deal with arguments?

I’m enjoying seeing my daughter increasing in confidence and becoming more independent. However, with this seems to come the mistaken belief that she is always right. My additional 30 years of life experience don’t seem to count for a great deal in my daughter’s eyes and recently we have found each other arguing rather a lot.

We’ve argued over little things like putting the lid back on the toothpaste and picking clothes up off the floor, which I tell her to do and then she forgets. And I often get the impression that she thinks I am out to spoil her fun. Take yesterday for example.

Arguing over footwear

We had decided to go shopping in Nottingham for the afternoon but within minutes of this decision being made we were arguing over footwear. My daughter was adamant that she was going to wear a pair of slip-on black shoes a friend had given her. I explained they were not suitable for walking around the shops in. As well as that they had not been properly fitted so could damage her feet.

She argued they would be fine and even if they did damage her feet did she didn’t mind. I told her when she was older she would mind. And so it went on until she realised, after stomping around in the shoes for a while that they were uncomfortable and not suitable footwear after all.

I really don’t like these sorts of arguments at all. There are raised voices and I often find myself repeating the same thing over and over again and getting nowhere. It really does leave me feeling quite deflated and it always takes us both a while to calm down. It’s also exhausting and I’m left wondering what the teenage years will be like or what will happen when we disagree over bigger issues like boyfriends or staying out late. At times it even leaves me questioning my abilities as a parent.

Blurred boundaries

According to a recent article in The Telegraph, children need a firm parent before they need a friend, and I think in our case this is a valid point. We are close because there are just the two of us in our household and I think the boundaries between parent and friend have become blurred. This seems to have made it difficult for me to exert any authority because we are used to treating each other as equals.

Not necessarily a bad thing

Arguments are a regular feature in most families so I’m clearly not alone. Susanna from AModernMother says her three girls have frequent arguments. Kate from Gigglingatitall finds distraction methods beneficial in preventing arguments with her children so they have more fun things to do than argue. But Kate also points out that arguments are not necessarily a bad thing. If we encourage our children to express ourselves freely then arguments are inevitable.

Ready for Ten’s behaviour expert Joanne Mallon has some excellent advice when it comes to the issue of arguments in families. Joanne says that the flip side of aiming to raise confident and independent children is that sometimes that confidence and independence is going to bounce right back at you, and can lead to arguments. But that's okay - you wouldn't want to have a child who doesn't feel they can say what's on their mind and express a point of view.

Joanne also points out that it's quite a healthy dynamic in a family if you can express how you feel, have a difference of opinion (not a full blown shouting match) and sort it out afterwards. As long as it's all underpinned by love and caring for one another, then it's okay to have different points of view.

With children of all ages (especially very independent-minded children) Joanne says you have to pick your battles, otherwise you would be fighting over every little thing. For those of us having increased arguments with our children, Joanne stresses the importance of not letting those arguments push us away from our children, and to see it instead as a sign that we need to spend more one to one time together having fun.

Do you find yourself arguing with your children? How do you deal with it? Is there any advice you can offer parents?