This post is from Grown and Flown.
by Melissa Fenton | Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
What if right now across the country - as college acceptance letters are hitting mailboxes and fall semester grades are being posted, and proud families are boasting about all the great success that is their student (and sharing it liberally across multiple social media outlets) - there could also be a way for student who have, or are currently “failing greatly” at something in their lives, to feel some sort of camaraderie?
Is there a way for these “failing” students to feel something other than complete defeat, shame, or humiliation for doing something that every successful human history has done – that is, FAIL?
Maybe something along the lines of a celebratory exclamation by families and students that expresses and/or explains an epic failure, but does so with the intent to normalize failure as something that is both necessary and vital to eventual success? Because our young adults desperately need to learn, experience, and be reminded of the fact that their journey of life is not immune to failing, inasmuch as it seems their peers and everyone else in their lives is doing everything right, we need to ensure that they know that in real life that is very much NOT the case.
Among the population that uses social media on the regular, it’s probably young adults who commonly take and process everything they see as pure and real truth. It’s actually not their fault, as their undeveloped brains are simply unable to put any kind of long-term perspective on the “now,” or be able to see through the rosy life filter that typically clouds most of what we put on social media. Meaning, everything they see, feel, and experience is pretty much life changing, permanent, and dramatic in their small bubble of life – and that includes failing, which for them is magnified to the umpteenth degree.
They will ultimately spend hours scrolling through heavily curated posts of their peers and seeing not only unblemished skin, but unblemished transcripts, all the while thinking “What is wrong with ME?” To make matters worse, everyone from families, educators, coaches, and college administrators, have unfortunately made it seem like being “average” is actually “failing.” When was the last time you heard a family on social media applaud their student for receiving a “C” in a class? Never, because a “C” is now pretty much a fail, while an “A” has become the norm.
Students then tend to believe that everyone else is cruising through life easily and without error, meanwhile they’re stranded alone on “fail island” with nary a life boat to be found. The problem is, they don’t realize that it’s exactly the people stranded on “fail island” that are the ones for whom – because of the fact they have to find a solution for getting off, end up with the upper hand in the long run. For some reason, we’ve all neglected to inject that wisdom into today’s young people – that often the greatest success and achievements come to those who have failed (and failed publicly) the most epically.
For additional support on campus, please encourage your student to connect with their academic advisor to discuss their grades, or Counseling and Psych Services for additional mental health support.
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