Families
Healthy intimacy, healthy kids.
Kids feel what’s happening between their parents, long before they have words for it. When the two of you are connected and steady, they feel safe. When things are tense, they feel that too — and they act out.
That’s not a reason to worry. It’s a reason to invest. The connection between you is one of the best things you can give your kids.
What the research says
Kids are tuned to their parents’ relationship. A review of 169 studies found that the quality of the relationship between parents is linked to how children do emotionally and behaviourally, and that the link holds over time. Hostility between parents was most strongly tied to acting-out behaviour. (van Eldik et al., 2020)
It shows up at school too. A major review concluded that conflict between parents affects children’s emotional, behavioural, social and academic outcomes, whether the parents live together or not. (Harold & Sellers, 2018)
It reaches their stress system. In one study of 201 two-year-olds, aggression between parents predicted larger stress-hormone responses in many of the children a year later. (Davies, Sturge-Apple & Cicchetti, 2011)
Nervous systems sync up. Parents’ and children’s bodies and behaviour tend to fall into rhythm with each other. This is called synchrony, or co-regulation. Research links it to children’s development, and conflict between parents is one of the things that shapes it. (Birk, Stewart & Olino, 2022)
And here’s the good news: working on the couple helps the kids. In a long-running study, children whose parents took part in couples groups before they started school had higher achievement-test scores and fewer behaviour problems through grade 4. Across nine studies of couple programs that measured children’s outcomes, eight found that when the parents’ relationship improved, their kids did better. (Cowan & Cowan; Pruett et al., 2017)
Conflict isn't the problem
Every couple disagrees. Kids don’t need perfect parents. What affects them is conflict that’s frequent, intense and never resolved. (Harold et al., 2016) What helps them is seeing their parents disagree, work it out, and come back together.
That’s exactly what this work teaches: how to stay regulated when things heat up, how to come back to calm when you lose it, and how to repair. Your kids learn it by watching you. They learn it by feeling you.
Sound familiar?
- Parenting has taken over, and there's not much “us” left.
- You clash over how to raise the kids.
- The load isn't shared evenly, and resentment is building.
- You're both exhausted by the time the kids are asleep.
- You want your kids to grow up with a different picture of love than the one you got.
How we help
Deeper
A private week for the two of you to reconnect, while the kids are cared for at home, or — optionally — while you connect on retreat.
Classes
Practical Tantra classes, where you can practise connection and learn with others.
You were never meant to do it alone. For most of history, people didn’t raise kids, grow food or get through hard times on their own. They had a village. Every family, whatever its shape, does better with more people around it.
Sources
- van Eldik, W. M., de Haan, A. D., Parry, L. Q., Davies, P. T., Luijk, M. P. C. M., Arends, L. R., & Prinzie, P. (2020). The interparental relationship: Meta-analytic associations with children’s maladjustment and responses to interparental conflict. Psychological Bulletin, 146(7), 553–594. doi.org/10.1037/bul0000233
- Harold, G. T., & Sellers, R. (2018). Annual Research Review: Interparental conflict and youth psychopathology: an evidence review and practice focused update. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 59(4), 374–402.
- Davies, P. T., Sturge-Apple, M. L., & Cicchetti, D. (2011). Interparental aggression and children’s adrenocortical reactivity: Testing an evolutionary model of allostatic load. Development and Psychopathology, 23(3), 801–814. doi.org/10.1017/S0954579411000319
- Birk, S. L., Stewart, L., & Olino, T. M. (2022). Parent–child synchrony after early childhood: A systematic review. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 25, 529–551. doi.org/10.1007/s10567-022-00383-7
- Pruett, M. K., Pruett, K., Cowan, C. P., & Cowan, P. A. (2017). Enhancing father involvement in low-income families: A couples group approach to preventive intervention. Child Development, 88(2), 398–407. doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12744
- Cowan, P. A., Cowan, C. P., & Barry, J. (2011). Couples’ groups for parents of preschoolers: Ten-year outcomes of a randomized trial. Journal of Family Psychology, 25(2), 240–250.
- Harold, G., Acquah, D., Sellers, R., & Chowdry, H. (2016). What works to enhance inter-parental relationships and improve outcomes for children. Early Intervention Foundation / Department for Work and Pensions.
Further reading: Alexandra Stockwell, Uncompromising Intimacy (2020).