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.Janice s story is different and demonstrates another way of using role orstatus reversal to change the dynamic between parent and child.Janice istypical of people who are strong and capable in all the areas of their lives,except when you put them in a room with one or both of their parents.Then this compliant, adaptive, frightened child appears from nowhere.Janice is an advertising executive, has a strong marriage,and from the outside, has a life that looks well managed.And it is, until Mum comes along.She rings Janice at leastthree times every day, at work or at home, and Janicenever tells her it s not a good time to talk or that even onecall a day would be better.She takes her mother shopping every week eventhough she doesn t want to and generally chauffeurs heraround despite the fact that her mother has her own car.Janice is seething inside but is petrified to mention eventhe smallest inconvenience to her mother.It would be naive to imagine that dealing with parents is the same asdealing with the rest of the world.It was important for Janice to under-stand that this one wasn t going to be  handled in one go.She had toslow things down and make it easier for herself.186 | The Nice FactorFirst she had to notice just how impatient she got when her motherdemanded things of her.So to start with, rather than show that impa-tience in an underhand way Janice began to treat her mother in acomforting parental way, telling her how she understood how lonelyshe was and how she wished she (Janice) was around more.Then she talked to her mother about her work just the way an adultwould to an older child, explaining what she did and inviting hermother to understand the huge responsibilities she had to deal withevery day.When she practised these approaches enough times she noticed thather mother didn t ring her at work as much.She never actually had totell her mother not to ring her, but by being included in what Janice swork life was like, her mother realised that phoning so often probablywasn t a very good idea.By then Janice was feeling better about mentioning the shopping,letting her mother know she liked spending time with her but found theregular shopping trips difficult.But most important she just felt betterabout being with her mother because it had become less an obligationand more a choice.Here are some  dos and don ts that we suggested to Renée andJanice and to many others who presented parents as their main diffi-culty.These reminders are very useful when attempting status reversal:" Avoid making the other person feel they are wrong or try toconvince them that you re right." Be as patient as is humanly possible." Listen to what the other person is saying and acknowledgetheir feelings." Avoid getting drawn into childish arguments (such as cominghome and meeting a nice French boy)." Avoid explaining the unexplainable (such as why you re goingto stay in Glasgow with your boyfriend)." Avoid accusing the other person of trying to control your life,which is probably what it feels like." Avoid verbal ping-pong." Keep returning to things that you want to talk about.Who s On Top? Playing The Status Game | 187Although we have developed the idea of status reversal specifically inrelation to parents, it s a useful tactic in many other situations as well.Any time that you feel someone is being heavily parental (in the nega-tive sense), you might consider changing your own status and makingthem the child.The Status Game is play: you can choose to play one day and choosenot to play the next.You can choose to play it high or choose to playit low.Whatever you choose, playing the status game is yet another way torefine your ever-expanding art of saying no.8I Never Win:Making Conflict Work For YouAnything to keep the peaceNice people don t like conflict.When you turned the page and saw theheading for this chapter, did your heart sink? When we get to this pointon our workshops, a groan usually echoes around the room: couldn twe just skip this part?How do you deal with conflict? Do you relish having the odd verbaldust-up or do you find ingenious ways to avoid ever disagreeing? Areyou someone who s a smoother-over of other people s upset whileswallowing your own? Are you someone who sidesteps confrontationbefore you get caught up in it?Unless you are an unusual nice person, you probably don t like quar-relling, arguments and bickering at all.Since disharmony around youmay reflect the disharmony you feel inside yourself, you will havedevised very clever ways of pretending the conflict that s around youisn t happening.You might acquire temporary deafness and just not hear what otherpeople are saying.You may have developed skilful ways of detachingyourself from the proceedings: you might have an urgent meeting togo to or a train to catch or work to catch up on as you sidle out of thebattle ground.You may act like Switzerland: neutral in the face of conflict happen-ing all around you.You may be someone who always sees both sides ofthe argument so you never have to take sides.Or be someone whoagrees to disagree so that nothing ever gets dealt with openly.190 | The Nice FactorYou may make light of difficult or tense situations so that you don thave to confront the seriousness of a problem.This way you keepthings on a very surface level just in case what s down a layer or two isunpleasant.You may make yourself so invisible and self-effacing that you can van-ish when it looks as though there s trouble brewing.Or you can go intothe previously mentioned trance state and stay oblivious to potentialdanger.You may prevaricate, telling the odd white lie, stalling in orderto postpone the moment of truth which later lands you deep in anargument you don t want to be in.You may dislike conflict so much that you simply give in as soon asyou get a whiff of it in the air.You may put up token resistance, but inthe end you know you re going to make things all right for other people,give them what they want, let them have their own way, let them believethey re right and you re wrong.You ll agree when you disagree.You ll make other people s absurdarguments acceptable by defending the indefensible.You ll justify some-one else s bad behaviour so that you don t have to admit how upset orhurt you are and thus possibly trigger a row.You may even end up apol-ogising when someone else is upset even though it has absolutelynothing to do with you [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]