Have participants go to Appendix A to locate this review Fair fighting. Fair fighting is one of the most critical skills we can teach our clients. However, it’s important to remember that all people disagree from time to time and so a certain amount of conflict is inevitable. The goal here is to help clients learn to speak their minds while controlling their emotions, tone of voice, words, and actions. We provide a simple list of Fair Fighting Do’s and Don’ts on the next pages. We ask clients to identify the three items on the “Don’t” list they most need to quit doing and the three items on the “Do” list they need to improve. This is a good topic for role plays. One way is to have the group members pair off, pick a topic, and first have an unfair fight in which each person uses the three “don’ts” they’ve identified, followed by addressing the same topic using the three positive items they selected. Here are a few possible topics: • They are co-workers who have to work at the same time. One wants to start an hour earlier and end an hour earlier, the other wants to keep the hours as they are. • They are siblings whose mother or father is having a birthday. One wants to give that parent a big party, the other just wants a small gathering. • One is a Republican and the other a Democrat arguing over the value of Obamacare. These are not intimate relationship scenarios. But people usually fight fairly or unfairly in similar ways whatever the disagreement. However, after a couple role plays it is wise to steer the conversation toward using the “Do’s” more and the “Don’ts” less in intimate situations.