Yeah, this is a real thing
(WTVD)Â East Carolina University is starting an “adulting” counseling program to help students deal with failure and other pitfalls of growing up.
The school was prompted to begin the program after noticing an increase in counseling appointments – 9,000 appointments were quested last school year, an increase of 1,800 appointments in just two years, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Virginia Hardy said.
“Students don’t have an opportunity as much these days to manage failure, they don’t experience it in certain ways as much so they don’t know how to manage it when it happens,” Hardy told The Daily Reflector of Greenville reports (http://bit.ly/2b3kbsM ).
They’ll be offered relaxation techniques and ways of changing unproductive negative thoughts. I’d think they could go a bit further in showing Special Snowflakes that they aren’t special and the world is scary, and how to adapt to the Real World.
The goal is to teach students there will be setbacks in life and responding to them properly is key to their development. Counselors also want to prevent students from turning to drugs and alcohol to deal with stress, Hardy said.
“What is the self-talk you’re having with yourself? Are you beating yourself up because you got a C?” Hardy said. “If you change the self-talk, you can then change the behavior that’s exhibited.”
Now, I’m not going to discount positive motivational techniques. Some are very useful, such as the Pacific Institute, which is fantastic, having been to it myself, and lots of big companies and government agencies, such as the DOD, use it. But, without any acknowledgement that the world will not coddle today’s brand of Special Snowflakeness, this is doomed to fail.
That all said, teaching college kids a bit about how the real world works would be worthwhile. Certainly, parents play a part, and working summer jobs and jobs while at college are helpful. I think that most of you, if not all, who attended college would agree with me that even 10-20 years ago college was still almost another world. It’s even more divorced from the real world today. Sure, lots of kids will make the adjustment, as they aren’t Special Snowflakes, but it can be a bit tough even for them.
One does have to wonder, though, how many of those 9,000 were the same snowflakes showing up again and again and again? Let’s end with this
East Carolina officials will also reach out to elementary, middle and high schools to see if they can teach coping skills and resiliency at a younger age.
Try and nip Special Snowflake Syndrome in the butt earlier.
