Examination of family conflicts and their negotiation process on marriage and children

Conflicts in the family are the natural and inevitable part of the process of marriage. The strategies of conflict management directly affect the continuity of the family as well as children?s social and emotional development. In this connection the aim of the study is to examine the effect of family conflicts and their negotiation process on marriage and the behavior of children. The research was carried out by using the semi-structured interview technique as a qualitative research method. The data was collected by using interview form prepared by the researcher in order to examine the students' and mothers' views on the conflict in the family. In pursuance of the criterion sampling approach three secondary schools were selected and from these schools 11-12 years old students and their mothers were taken as study group. The research was carried out studying with 36 students and 36 mothers who were distributed in equal numbers according to the socio-economic level and gender. The qualitative data obtained by using semi-structured interviews were analyzed by content analysis technique. Coded reliability analysis, which was conducted before the analysis process, was found 96%. In this study, the following results were obtained after analysis of the data: Conflict in the family is associated with marital conflict, negative emotions, interpersonal discordance, and physical violence with verbal and psychological violence. Parents are having the conflicts because of children, disagreement on certain issues, money, housework, relationship disputes and fight between the siblings. In these conflicts, parents show avoidance reactions as well as destructive and aggressive responses. In marriages, conflict between mother and father causes mothers to feel offended, resentful, angry, stressed and distant from the marriage. At the same time these conflicts are causing both spouses and children to be unhappy. During the conflict between mother and father, children imagine that parents are not fighting/quarrelling and will make it up, they tend to focus on the thoughts turned to anxiety and despair, and they want to end the quarrel. Children are reacting to these conflicts by intervening and getting away from the place, also they act as mediator between the parents. Key Words: Marital Conflict, Conflict Management Strategies, Negotiation.