Please respond to the following questions and save your reflections in a document titled Pushing Back with Challenging Questions:

How did you know you needed to say something? How did it feel? Can you remember how your body felt? How was it received? How comfortable are you with pushing back against something problematic in the future?

When we need to push back against problematic ideas that someone we are supporting is communicating, asking a series of direct questions that challenge those ideas is a great way to get people to think through their thoughts and beliefs and hopefully arrive at a different conclusion. We may ask:



Practice:

Choose at least one of the scenarios and respond to the questions below (content warning: descriptions of sexual coercion (first example) and emotionally abusive behavior (second example)):

What ideas need to be challenged in this example? What challenging questions will you push back with? What could happen if these ideas are not challenged? How could you prepare for this conversation?