What Failure Teaches College Freshman

Your college freshman is borderline failing her classes. You’re not sure what to do. You want to help. Should you take your child to the doctor? Is the college being unreasonably demanding? Should your child transfer to a local community college? How can you help your freshman before it’s too late?

As a parent, you may be tempted to take your child’s failure personally. Your freshman may not be performing as well as you expected. But your child’s low grades are not a direct reflection on you. Failure, although sometimes painful and even embarrassing, is often the greatest key to success. Failure teaches your college freshman 6 important lessons.

6 Lessons Failure Teaches Your College Freshman

1. Failure teaches your freshman her natural abilities.

Your freshman cannot be good at everything. In high school, your child may have taken advantage of every single opportunity—sport teams, community service projects, marching band, etc. But in college your freshman cannot possibly juggle all available opportunities, earn a 4.0 and maintain her physical health.

Not being able to manage all these opportunities provides important feedback: most people can only do a few things well. Having to choose between different opportunities requires genuine sacrifice.

With limited time, your freshman will need to choose what areas she genuinely enjoys and is skilled at. But your child will not learn this lesson if she never fails trying.

2. Failure teaches your freshman how to bounce back.

Failure is part of life. It’s unavoidable and inevitable. The average person experiences much more failure and rejection than acceptance and success. The sooner your freshman can learn this, the better she can learn to respond to failure.

Failure reveals areas of weakness. By doing poorly on an assignment, your freshman is probably noticing areas that need improvement. Your child can choose to simply give up or bounce back and power through.

An area that can particularly discourage college freshmen is grades. Your freshman’s GPA is just a number, and honestly most future employers will not ask about your child’s college grades. It’s an irrelevant detail unless your child is getting more schooling after an undergraduate degree. A GPA does not determine your freshman’s future success.

Frankly, some students require more time than others when adjusting to the demands of college. Allow your freshman some time to adjust and fail, but always encourage her to get back up.

3. Failure teaches your freshman grit.

Failure is necessary for success. It is. Some of the most successful businessmen, inventors and athletes would not have experienced such great success without first failing. Angela Duckworth, author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, points to grit as an indicator of success. Grit, not talent, enables people to power through.

Experiencing failure can mature your freshman’s perspective. Instead of focusing on how many times he failed to invent the lightbulb, Thomas Edison believed that he “just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

Your freshman may feel crippled from failure. But don’t let your child stay down for the count. Encourage your freshman to keep on keeping on.

4. Failure teaches your freshman to ask for help.

You know your freshman doesn’t know everything. Your child may think she knows everything, but she doesn’t. The sooner your child realizes her own limits, the better.

Failing can be demoralizing. Failing can diminish your freshman’s confidence levels. But failing also provides opportunity for your child to get help. There is no shame in getting help, but getting help does require some humility.

You may have tried to caution your freshman from going to parties on weeknights but to no avail. You may have encouraged your freshman to meet with a teacher to get help but (again) to no avail. Failing helps your freshman see that she really can’t do this all on her own. Your child needs to get some help.

5. Failure teaches your freshman to take risks.

Little to no risk yields little to no reward. The greater the risk is, the greater the possibility of reward. Now I’m not advocating an adrenaline-driven lifestyle. I merely am saying that risk reveals how much your freshman truly wants something.

Norman Vincent Peale said: “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” Encourage your freshman to dream big and work hard. If your freshman really wants to get that internship, she will do everything in her power to get it. If your freshman wants to get a 4.0 first semester, she’ll study hours each day.

The point is that failing brings risks into perspective. Only if your freshman truly desires something will she be willing to take the risk.

6. Failure teaches your freshman personal responsibility.

Being away from home probably means your freshman’s decisions have greater personal responsibility. If your child forgets to print out a paper, it’s all on her. No one else can bail your freshman out.

In the past, most of your child’s decisions did not have the same level of consequences that they do now. But the motivation for doing well in college can no longer come from a parent. It has to come from your freshman. Your freshman’s consequences are directly tied to their decisions. If your child chooses to party during the week, her grades will suffer.

As a parent you can listen, ask questions and encourage your child to get available help. But ultimately your child is personally responsible for her choices.

Some freshman assume that college is much like high school, but it’s not. Learning by failing may not seem ideal, but failing may be the best thing that could happen to your child. Failure teaches your freshman valuable lessons that wouldn’t be learned any other way.