Do You Use Any of These Coping Responses?

Coping Responses: Fight, Flight, Submit

There are many ways people cope with being controlled. Most of them fit into the three coping styles listed below.

1. Fighting: resisting control, getting back at the controller in different ways, trying to come out as a winner with the controller being the loser.

2. Escaping: avoiding or running away from control--keeping thoughts within yourself or actually leaving the scene.

3. Submitting: giving in or giving up and doing just as the controller demands--and then resenting yourself and disliking the controller.

Here is an example of each of the coping styles using the following illustration:

Your teacher gets angry at some of the students in your class for continually goofing off and suddenly announces there will be a big test tomorrow.

1. You argue with the teacher that it isn't fair to punish the whole class. (Fight)
2. You don't go to that class the next day. (Flight)
3. You go home and study and take the test even though you think it's totally unfair. (Submit)

Read the following list of coping behaviors and keep a mental note of any of the ones you have used or now use:

1. Lying
2. Bossing, bullying
3. Aggressive arguing
4. Blaming others
5. Cheating, tattling
6. Feeling resentful, angry, hostile
7. Being submissive
8. Striking back, retaliating
9. Resisting, rebelling
10. Confirming, afraid to try something new*

*Excerpt from Dr. Thomas Gordon's F.E.T. Young Adult Resource Book

Aggression, Retaliation, Striking Back

Because parental domination by authority often frustrates the needs of the child, and frustration so often leads to aggression, parents who rely on authority can expect their children to show aggression in some way. Children retaliate, try to cut the parent down to size, are severely critical, talk back nastily, employ "the silent treatment," or do any one of the hundreds of aggressive things that they feel may get back at the parents or hurt them.

The formula for this way of coping seems to be "You hurt me, so I'll hurt you--then maybe you won't hurt me in the future." Its extreme manifestation are cases, frequently reported in newspapers, of children who kill their parents. No doubt many acts of aggression against school authorities (vandalism), against the police, or against political leaders are motivated by a desire to retaliate or get back at someone.

Conflict: An Opportunity for Your Relationship to Grow!

Conflict is a disagreement, a clash, a quarrel, a fight between two or more people--family members, friends, coworkers and the like. It's the moment of truth in a relationship; a test of its health; a crisis that can weaken or strengthen it.

Conflicts can push people away from each other or pull them closer together. Whether it occurs at home, at school, at work, or elsewhere, most people hate conflict and avoid it at all costs. They pretend nothing is wrong. 

They do this because in their experience most conflicts end with someone winning and someone losing or both losing. People end up distant from each other. Sometimes they end up hating each other, or worse, physically hurting each other.

Few people accept that conflict is a natural part of life and not necessarily bad. Actually, it would be a rare relationship in which one person's needs did not conflict with the other's over a period of time. When any two people (or groups) coexist, conflict is bound to occur just because people are different, think differently and have needs and wants that sometimes don't match.

Conflicts can be about friends, spouses, coworkers, chores, money, etc. 

Conflict in a family, with friends, with spouses, coworkers, etc., openly expressed and accepted as natural and inevitable, can be far healthier than most people think. It can be useful in identifying problems which need to be solved. And it can bring about constructive changes in relationships.

Probably the most important factor in any relationship is how conflicts get resolved, not how many conflicts occur. How they get resolved determines to a great extent whether a relationship will be healthy or unhealthy, friendly or unfriendly, intimate or cold, deep or shallow.

Last week, we examined compromise as one way of resolving a conflict, and the damages it can do to a relationship when one person wins and the other person loses. Next week, we will examine how to resolve conflicts so that our relationships can grow stronger.