starting to feel angry about it,” or “I’m not sure you think this is important for you to do.”
not: “I hate you!”, “Every time we talk about this, you get defensive,” “Stop patronizing me!”
3. assert wishes in the situation. When another person is pestering you, you can ask him 
or her to stop it. When a person is refusing a request, you can suggest that you put the 
conversation off until another time. Give the other person a chance to think about it.
Example:  “Please don’t ask me again. My answer won’t change,” or “OK, let’s stop discussing 
this now and pick it up again sometime tomorrow,” or “Let’s cool down for a while and then get 
together to figure out a solution.”
not: “Would you shut up?” “You should do this!”, “You should really calm down and do what’s 
right here.”
4. reinforce.  When you are saying no to someone who keeps asking, or when someone won’t 
take your opinion seriously, suggest ending the conversation, since you aren’t going to change 
your mind anyway. When trying to get someone to do something for you, you can suggest that 
you will come up with a better offer later.
Example:  “Let’s stop talking about this now. I’m not going to change my mind, and I think this is 
just going to get frustrating for both of us,” or “OK, I can see you don’t want to do this, so let’s 
see if we can come up with something that will make you more willing to do it.”
not: “If you don’t do this for me, I’ll never do anything for you ever again,” “If you keep asking