“The skill to get hot without getting mad — to have a good argument that doesn’t become personal — is critical in life. But it’s one that few parents teach to their children. We want to give kids a stable home, so we stop siblings from quarreling and we have our own arguments behind closed doors. Yet if kids never get exposed to disagreement, we’ll end up limiting their creativity.”
Creativity rarely comes from people who always get along with each other — it’s often birthed from tension between opposing ideas.
That’s why Adam Grant believes you should encourage your kids to fight as opposed to ending their arguments.
He also suggests parents not try to hide their own disagreements from their kids. As he explains, “When parents disagree with each other, kids learn to think for themselves. They discover that no authority has a monopoly on truth.”