Disappointment: A Hidden Teaching
As fraternity/sorority professionals and educators, we observe, and are attentive to students’ emotions on a daily basis. In these daily encounters, we see students who exhibit various emotions such as being happy, sad, excited, inquisitive, as well as students who are disappointed. It is this last emotion I’d like to discuss…disappointment.
How do we deal with disappointment? Surely we have all experienced disappointment at some point in our lives. Whether it was the birthday gift we didn’t receive or those frustrating claw machines that never gave us the stuffed animal we wanted, disappointment is a part of life. So how have we been trained to deal with disappointment? Furthermore, how have we taught our students to deal with disappointment? This article looks at the emotion of disappointment and how we as professionals can aid students when the feeling of disappointment appears.
If you look online and find Merriam-Webster’s dictionary definition, disappointment’s adjective disappointed means, “defeated in expectation or hope.” Read that again…defeated in expectation or hope, not a very pleasant feeling to have at any point in life. For our student leaders, their lives are dependent on creating expectations and goals that they hope will have a positive outcome. However, positive outcomes aren’t always the reality. At some point, disappointment will appear and as educators, we need to be ready.
Addressing Disappointment:
The first step in dealing with disappointment is addressing it with our students. More often than not, students tend to think of disappointment as a bad emotion that needs to be hidden. Students don’t want to let disappointment affect them and they try to console themselves so they won’t be embarrassed in front of others. Sometimes, students won’t tell us what they’re hoping for because they don’t want to have to tell us that they failed. Disappointment can be embarrassing and humiliating.
As professionals, we need to be able to acknowledge disappointment once it has hit one of our students. This can happen in two different ways. For some students, they will acknowledge their disappointment on their own and come to you for support. It is important for you as a professional to really listen to what has upset the student, not necessarily because the issue itself is important but because you have been given an opening to teach the student how to deal with disappointment.
The other way to acknowledge disappointment is to ask open-ended questions to a student who seems disappointed. It is important to address the student in a private setting in which you try to identify what has upset them. In this role, you need to actively listen to the student as they express their disappointment while reassuring them that failing at something does not mean they are a failure.
Once you or the student has acknowledged the disappointment and you have identified some of the reasons why the student is disappointed, it would be a good idea to share some of your own disappointments and how you handled them. By sharing a disappointment experience of your own with your student you let them know its okay to be disappointed and that disappointment is a part of life. Discussing how you handle your disappointment gives students a window into the reasoning process that keeps you from overreacting, which they may then craft to fit their own situations. Seeing the fraternity/sorority professional throw the NPC Manual of Information across the room when a rule has been broken teaches one lesson. Seeing the fraternity/sorority professional sit down and talk about the problem calmly and reasonably teaches another.
Teach Students to Recover and Risk Disappointment Again:
Once we have addressed disappointment and have shared genuine disappointment stories, we must then teach our students to move on from the disappointing experience. Chapter elections, relationships with a significant other, a bad grade on a test, a rejection from a potential job employer or graduate school application; each of these are potential disappointments students could face (particularly in the near future).
Recognizing that these potential disappointment “boobie traps” are coming, teaching students how to recover from potential disappointment needs to be a priority. For some students, the thought of possible disappointment stops them from stepping out and trying something new. However, we must be able to challenge their mindset by expressing the thought that if they only try for things that are guaranteed, won’t they be missing out on developing their full capacity? I’m in firm belief that you learn more from your failures than your successes and whatever way works best for you to convey that message to your student should be the focus of the discussion.
For other students, they will recognize that disappointment occurs and they will naturally try again. In that situation, we as professionals must encourage the student in their attempt but also provide critical and constructive feedback to ensure the student understands that being disappointed again is a possibility. Again, depending on the student’s personality and your advisory style, this may look different to various advisors. However at the end of the day, just because a student is willing to risk disappointment again doesn’t limit their anxiety level and fear of perceived failure anymore than a student facing disappointment for the first time. I’d venture to guess that risking disappointment a second or third time might greatly increase anxiety and have more of a lasting effect on a student’s perceived failure if they did in fact be disappointed again.
