Role Play: Complaints

Learning to complain is a very healthy thing. It is not about keeping a discomfort inside: it
causes an ulcer; Nor is it about throwing it "to kill", it is worse than an ulcer for whoever
receives it.

We are going to put into practice a few role-playing games that will allow us to analyze and
improve our "forms". Surely after this experience our criticisms are more constructive.

These are the topics that we will write down on pieces of paper and that you will voluntarily
interpret by choosing them at random. We will ask for volunteers to interpret in pairs
before choosing the role that tells us what the complaint is about.

1.- A police officer has just placed a ticket on our windshield and we will try to explain to
him that it is not fair since we have only double parked for a few minutes???

2.- The food that we found on our plate today could not precisely be defined as "delicious."
It's not the first time it's happened to us.

3.- We are in the bus queue at rush hour and we notice that a person is placed in the first
positions without respecting their turn to arrive.

4.- They have just given us the notes. The results are "catastrophic." The exam was
considered by the majority to be very difficult. We express our complaints to the teacher
who wrote it.

5.- A person in front of us has just eaten some cookies and we see how he throws the
paper on the floor. We express our displeasure at such an attitude.

With these 5 situations we will have more than enough for a complete session.

After each performance we will ask the people who performed HOW THEY HAVE FELT. This,
as we have already repeated on numerous occasions, is very important and we must pay
sufficient attention to it. Once they tell us their feelings and emotions during the
interpretation, we will move on to the analysis.

Do situations like this occur in reality? Have we experienced a similar situation firsthand?
Although it has been very good considering the difficulty of the situation, could it be
improved in any way? Has the person receiving the complaint been convinced or has a
greater confrontation been created?

We must ask this series of questions or some similar ones after each interpretation. It is
not about having time to carry out all the proposed role-playing games, but about
analyzing them in depth to extract the learning that makes our lives (and those of other
people) easier.

Dynamics / Role-playing game - GROUP PRESSURE

With this role-playing game we want to address the very negative group pressure that
many boys and girls have to endure in order not to feel excluded from what they consider
their only like-minded group.

Through brainstorming we can make a list on the board with typical situations in which
someone may feel forced to experience an unpleasant situation.

Below we list some of the most typical:

Having to steal a CD from a department store...

Being encouraged to drink or drink more...

Having to participate in a strike or having to do "fucks"...

Having to ride a very risky fairground ride...

Having to smoke..................

We select the 4 situations that may be most related to the class and we write them on four
pieces of paper. We divided the class into four groups. Each group takes a piece of paper
and has 15 minutes to discuss how they are going to interpret the role-play.

Probably with a starting game to spark the first brainstorming and the debate in small
groups to organize the role-playing game we have consumed the 50 minutes of the session.
If we do not have more time, it is better that we cut here to continue the next day. If you
have taken note of the agreements on the roles distributed, it will be good for you to give
them to us and on the next occasion we will return them to you so you can continue.

We restarted the work with another small meeting in 4 groups to review the agreements
made in the previous one. They will have to decide who is going to be the person who puts
pressure and who is going to feel pressuredX. The rest of the group, which can be up to 5
or 6 people, will take one of the two parts. It is good to let them organize themselves
freely, without any intervention on our part.

After the representation of each group we will move on to a detailed evaluation. How they
felt will be the inevitable question to each of the people who have acted. It is also advisable
to comment on the extent to which reality has been represented and if they know of similar
cases. This will probably bring to light real situations that will help us get to know our
students better.

For a third session we can carry out a new role-playing game in which the person under
pressure or the person who exerted the pressure has a meeting with his father and mother
in which they comment on the situation they experienced. Here you can determine what
type of father or mother that person has by trying to stage various models of father or
mother.

Once again we will give a lot of importance to the evaluation, listening to feelings and
emotions about what was experienced and whether or not it is close to your reality.
Needless to say, our role is not to judge them, it is simply to listen, to encourage dialogue,
to express their experiences and situations. Value very positively those attitudes that
indicate a willingness to be oneself in difficult situations. Give them time to mature and a
significant number of different responses so they can choose which one they want as their
own.