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Step Into College is honored to present this guest posting by one of America’s best-known authorities on dealing with rejection. We recently quoted her comments on dealing with rejection letters. In this guest posting she offers concrete tips on dealing with the thin envelopes. She also explores the family dynamics that can cause parents to live vicariously through their students college careers and what this undue pressure can do a son or daughter.
Dr. Elayne Savage, The Queen of Rejection™, is a skillful communication coach and internationally respected expert on taking things personally and the fear of rejection. Elayne has over twenty-five years in coaching, consulting, and clinical experience. She holds a Ph.D. in Family Psychology. A professional member of the National Speakers Association, she is a sought-after workshop leader, trainer, and consultant for a broad range of clients. She also teaches graduate level students. An expert on criticism and rejection, cultural diversity, and work and family relationships. Elayne educates, inspires and challenges audiences.
Rejection letters - who is more disappointed, the student or the family? by Elayne Savage, PhD
Your First Rejection Letter Most Likely Won’t Be Your Last
Rejection letters are a fact of life. They are not only from college admission offices. You’ll probably have to deal with rejection letters more than once in your life. Maybe from a job application, from a boss turning down your pay raise request, from the decision maker about a project you’ve proposed, or even from a gallery, editor or casting director. I was recently quoted in a Forbes.com piece on handling college rejection letters. This is very timely. This is the month college acceptance or rejection letters go out. This is the time when everyone in the household is waiting and hoping for the arrival of a fat envelope from the longed for college. You know. Fat. Fat enough to contain all the forms to fill out that come with news of an acceptance.
But what if a thin envelope shows up in the mailbox instead? Thin enough to contain that one page rejection form letter. How does the applicant deal with the disappointment? How do other family members react?
And for that matter, who is more disappointed, the student or the family?
The Forbes reporter and I discussed struggles parents and students have during the application process. We talked about ways the rejected teen can handle the situation. We also talked about the parents’ tendency to become overly invested in the outcome.
Putting on the Pressure
If parents have their hearts set on a certain college for their child, they may put on the pressure. That particular school may not be the right fit at all for the student. Yet the parent pushes for it. And pushes and pushes. What if the student feels pushed beyond their comfortable limits? What if they are unable or afraid to say “no?” This is when continued pressure can feel coercive. Why does this pushing occur? Some parents don’t know how to separate their own needs from those of their children. Sometimes parents get confused about what is best for their kids. Instead, it becomes about what is best for the parent.
Confusing Boundary Confusion
For the sake of definition, let’s call this type of confusion: confusion of personal boundaries.
The parents’ needs overshadow the child’s needs. The student loses his or her sense of identity by trying so hard to please parents, not wanting to let them down. The student might feel like a non-person with no needs. Feeling like a non-person is a bit like feeling invisible. Like you don’t count. Feeling discounted equals feeling rejected.
There are lots of situations where parents’ boundary confusion occurs. The “hit-a-home-run-for-me” parent makes the softball game about him or herself. Their child’s home run is their home run. The stage-mom mom (or dad) takes on their child’s stage triumph as their own. And they take it personally if their offspring flubs a line or misses a cue.
Confused Vicarious Parents
Parents of college applicants get caught up in this mushy boundary web as well. Their child’s acceptance becomes their acceptance. A rejection is experienced as if it were the parent’s own rejection.
Again, for the sake of definition let’s call this type of parent: ‘vicarious parent.’ And for the sake of being fair, parents are usually not aware of the vicarious nature of their interactions with their children.
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines ‘vicarious’ as: Felt or undergone as if one were taking part in the experience or feelings of another
Dictionary.com Unabridged says: Performed, exercised, received, or suffered in place of another
Parents who tend to live vicariously through their children are usually a bit unclear about where they stop and their child begins. They encourage their children to achieve in a way that meets the parent’s own unmet goals. And the goal is sometimes not realistic for the child at all. Instead it’s the parents’ unfulfilled dreams that they urge their child to carry out.
These kinds of dreams often propel parents to follow their own agendas, without regard for the best interest of the child. It’s often about the ‘performer’ the parent had hopes of becoming: on the playing field, on the stage, in school.
When you get right down to it, the child might feel dismissed, disregarded or even discarded. Each of these feels like a rejection. And they are.
Here’s how I describe vicarious parenting in Don’t Take It Personally! The Art of Dealing with Rejection.
These parents see their children’s performance in life as a reflection of their own competence. If the children do well, the parents feel like good parents, successful parents. If the children fall below expectations, the parents feel inadequate and shamed. Then the children are often made to feel inadequate and shamed. The children may lose their sense of self, trading ’self’ for service to the parents. It’s the on the stage part that I’m most familiar with. My mother wanted me to be the star she never became. From the time I was very young, she pushed me into the spotlight. Sometimes I didn’t want to go. But I didn’t dare say no.
Elayne Meets ‘The Saint’
My mother’s first big push to make me a star was when I was 6 years old. I remember it was my birthday party. My friends and I were eating ice cream and cake when the phone rang. It was for me.
A man from the Washington Post asked to speak to me. “Congratulations little girl. Your poem just won our big contest for the new comic strip, “The Saint. Your prize is to read it on the radio.”
I was very confused. I didn’t know what he was talking about. I didn’t know anything about a contest. I didn’t write any poem.
But my mother knew all about it. She wrote the poem. Making it sound as if six year old might write it. And she didn’t tell me. She just sent it to the newspaper.
How was I going to read the poem on the radio? I couldn’t read very well. Her answer was to make me memorize it. Every night after dinner I stood in front of my mother practicing the poem. She’s say each line and I’d repeat after her. Again. And again.
I’ll never forget the poem I didn’t write:
I like to read the Post each day
To see what The Saint has to say.
His deeds and actions thrill me most,
That’s why I like to read the Post.
The words were drilled into my head. Day after day.
There was some very serious drilling during the long streetcar ride across town to the radio station.At the studio all the gleaming microphones overwhelmed me. The booming voice of the show host made me nervous. I stood in front of the microphone, feeling like a fraud, pretending I wrote the poem. And scared to death.The time arrived to say my poem. I messed up. I forgot the words.My parents were embarrassed. No, that really doesn’t describe it. They were mortified. All their friends and relatives had tuned in to the station that afternoon. And their ‘big star’ daughter messed up and let them down big time.
Letting Parents Down
Over the years this same scenario replayed following dance recitals and plays. They would be especially upset with me when their friends or relatives were in the audience. Each time I’d see that disappointed look on my mother’s face. Each time I felt like I could never be good enough. Each time I felt let her down.
And that brings us back to the college rejection situation. When that too-thin envelope shows up in the mail, students sometimes feel that they have let their parents down.
So many people are waiting to see what the college admissions office decides. The student, the parents, the school counselor, relatives, friends. It isn’t just the applicant’s disappointment. It’s shouldering the expectations and disappointments of what must feel like the whole world.
Waiting for a decision from colleges brings on another family situation. How do they deal with anxiety? Everyone has anxiety while waiting, but here boundary confusion again enters in. During stressful situations anxious feelings can get passed around from person to person.
For example, the parent might be experiencing memories of past rejections or disappointments. As the tension builds the teen may be absorbing their parent’s fears and anxiety.
This situation is similar to the exchange of anxiety that occurs in some families on the first day of preschool or kindergarten. The child’s own nervousness increases as it becomes a reflection of the parent’s anxieties.
For example let’s say that the parent is re-experiencing their own difficult “first day” at school. And the child picks up the tension. When this happens, they are not just dealing with their own worries but with their parent’s worries as well.
Tips for Dealing with Rejection Letters
- Remind yourself it’s not personal. Colleges (or potential employers, or meeting planners or galleries) are looking for a fit. It’s something like auditioning for a play you long to be cast in. And even thought you know you are talented and terrific, you don’t get the role. An actor I know reminds herself that not getting a part is no reflection on her talent. She has a placard on her office wall that reminds her: ‘It’s selection, not rejection.’
- Both parents and teens would do well to try to try to keep personal boundaries straight. To understand what feelings belong to whom. What goals belong to who. And what disappointments belong to whom. Passing feelings and anxiety around the family only adds another layer of tension to the situation.
- Labeling and expressing feelings of rejection and disappointment helps you to deal with the loss. And it IS a loss.
- Try hard to see that there is a future after rejection. Remind yourself that making good grades and transferring is always possible. If your choice of career needs graduate school, remind yourself that the graduate school attended makes undergraduate college have less far less importance.
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