As a class exercise, get students to respond to the following questions by giving you descriptive words or phrases that you, or someone, puts on the board. After you let this exercise continue for about ten minutes, look for ways to start grouping the words or phrases. Using these words and phrases on the board, generate a discussion about the types of responses to conflict. We always have a great many more negative words to describe our conflicts. I hope one truth that will emerge involves the necessity of facing a conflict before it can have a positive result.
Avoidance only makes the conflict worse.
Ask students to comment on making this role play as real as possible AND positive. Instructors need to be ready to help the students out of a jam, if they can't see any way to settle the conflict. Jill attends Bellarmine and lives at home with her parents. Her father met her at the door, obviously worried. He told her that from now on she would have to tell him exactly where she was going and when she would return.