“Mommy, it’s not fair” sobbed my 17-year-old daughter as she climbed into bed with me that December night.
She had just been rejected (early) from her first-choice college.
She already “knew” college admissions rates are staggeringly low and have almost nothing to do with qualifications; any decision was a numbers game, not personal. She knew.
She sobbed.
I was brokenhearted. Every cell in my body was screaming at me to FIX THIS NOW.
And yet –
What my daughter needed in her moment of “It’s not fair” was a loving embrace, silence and time to grieve HER loss (not mine).
Which meant I got to shut up and listen; process my own feelings about her experience without her; and model what it means to feel the feelings, tolerate them and move through. Exhausting.
The next day, my daughter laid low. She played sad music; she moved things around on her desk; she cried; she watched cat videos on Instagram.
I laid low too, wondering what would be required from me.
On Sunday morning, my daughter woke up and said, “I can still apply ED2. I wonder where I should apply next.”
And in this magical moment of resilience, I started asking: What are the skills my daughter developed to experience, process and recover from a college rejection at the school she had dreamed of attending for several years?
What follows is an attempt to answer this question for parents who are raising kids who will apply to college, seek a job, go for an opportunity and experience rejection.
Skill #1: Experience with failure
Sleep deprivation aside, parenting an infant is the easiest stage. There’s almost always a solution to the problem (wet, hungry or tired?), and WE are responsible for it.
As kids grow, however, they go from needing us to solve their problems to needing us to guide them through their problems WITHOUT solving them.
Problem-solver mode is easier. But not better. Kids who are never allowed to struggle or experience failure, turn out to be emotionally brittle, not resilient.
It starts early. Letting toddlers fall down (literally) is allowing them to experience failure. It is necessary. It is valuable. I let my daughter fall down. A lot.
Skill #2: A coherent narrative of one’s life
Once the toddler falls down, then there are different ways to go. We can:
- Make a big fuss and tell kiddo they’re OK, they’re OK, they’re OK.
- Tell them that if they’re not bleeding, they better not be crying.
- Pause, calmly tell a short version of what happened (I call this “Tell the Story”), and wait for them to indicate what they need next.
Over time, hearing a calm, coherent narrative from an adult reinforces a child’s inner guidance about what they need and how to get it. My daughter has a coherent life narrative. It is powerful in what follows.
Skill #3: Tolerance of difficult emotions
Research shows that parents who model tolerating difficult emotions and who allow their children to experience difficult emotions (without “solving” them), teach their children the holy grail of humanity.
If my daughter had believed that her shame, sadness and grief were problems to be solved, she might have crawled under her own covers and stayed isolated. Or worse.
Instead, she sought connection and comfort. She accepted her feelings and herself, and was began to place the experience into a coherent narrative, which for the first 24 hours involved, “Well that happened. Ouch.”
This is a skill that I’ve worked many hours on in various forms of coaching and therapy as an adult. It is worth every minute; my children have certainly benefited.
Skill #4 – Plan-B Thinking
Within the second 24 hours, my daughter moved into thinking about what some people call “Plan B”.
The ability to switch to Plan B requires being able to see a choice point in every moment. Things didn’t work out? I have options. Can’t put the shape into the sorter this way? I can try a different way. Tried out for a team sport and didn’t make the team? I can try a different sport or join a club. Got a bad grade on a test? I can get extra help.
Got rejected from college #1? I have choices about what to do next.
But Plan B doesn’t develop in a vacuum. It has to be modeled by adults. We adults get to show kids how to arrive at a Plan B. But only if we know how to get there ourselves. It’s worth learning how to do it.
Skill #5: Self-Love, self-acceptance, self-confidence
My daughter “has her own back.” She knows, accepts and loves herself unconditionally, another skill we don’t learn in school. We are used to seeking validation from others and thinking that if we experience enough success, we will feel worthy and successful.
Turns out, that’s not how it works.
Unconditional self-love is an inside job. It can’t come from other people, and it certainly can’t come from getting into your first-choice college (even if you do get in). As I’ve learned how to love myself unconditionally, she’s also learned this skill.
Do Your Work First
In closing, if I were going to give just one piece of advice for how to prepare your child for a college rejection, it would be to Do Your Work so that you can show up for them to do theirs. Parenting gives us so many opportunities to confront aspects of ourselves that are painful, but also fruitful, if we let them teach us. Therapy, coaching, talking with friends, questioning our own reactions when our kids trigger us – these are all useful tools in the parenting journey.
Oh, and yes – after a gap year – my daughter is excited to start college in fall 2025.
Gabriele is a toddler whisperer, child development specialist, parent coach and host of the Complicated Kids Podcast. She is passionate about showing families how to help their complicated kids thrive and not just survive. Reach her at gabrielenicolet.com
