Sorority recruitment, or rush, is a stressful time for most college students. My teen and young adult life coaching clients have described the experience as competitive, exhausting, and harsh. At event after event, they have to put their best face forward to meet the certain standards and expectations of their chosen sororities. When bid day rolls around, hopes and anxiety run high. Some girls get accepted as new members and begin the process of getting to know their “sisters.” Others do not receive such happy news. They are dropped and left to process the difficult feeling of rejection.
Whether it’s from a sorority, friend group, or romantic interest, rejection can trigger strong emotions of self-doubt and unworthiness. C.S. Lewis said, hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny. But teen girls usually need coaching in order to find the extraordinary destiny that can lie within rejection.
After experiencing rejection, girls want to learn tools and mindsets that help them let go and move on. Life coaching helps girls learn to cope positively with rejection.
Coaching is objective.
When your daughter experiences rejection, she will, almost certainly, take it personally. Self-doubt will be in full force and she will be wondering, what is wrong with me?!
It’s natural for you to grow upset when your daughter is distraught or unfairly blaming herself. At the same time as offering her reassurance, you might also start blaming and name-calling the people who left her out. While this is an understandable reaction, it’s more likely to exacerbate her feelings of distress and self-blame. This is where a life coach can help. Because I am not “in” the emotionally charged situation with your daughter, I can approach it with objectivity, helping her gain a constructive perspective of herself, the situation, and her best next steps.
Coaching provides a safe, trusting space.
Your daughter will need to process her feelings of rejection but she may not want to turn to you. Many of my teen and young adult clients have told me they avoid telling their parents about a social rejection because they think their parents won’t understand or they don’t want their parent’s advice.
With a life coach, your daughter has a trusted and experienced sounding board where she can safely share her feelings and determine future actions. In addition, through coaching, she learns how to talk about difficult experiences with you.
Coaching presents a new perspective.
Rejection can also be experienced as a social failure so it is important for girls to learn how to reframe a perceived failure. When I’m coaching girls in this area, I point out that in most cases, “failing” is an indication that it is time to refocus or redirect.
I use these questions to help my teen clients change their perspective of failure:
What do you now know that you didn’t know before?
What did the experience show you about yourself? About others?
What do you realize is now most important to you?
Coaching provides support for you too!!
It is natural to want to rescue your teen when she’s in a sticky social situation, but if you do, she will never develop resiliency or social strength. However, when you provide her a life coach, you give her an opportunity to learn tools, mindsets, and strategies that help her reflect, solve problems, and think ahead.
Similarly, parent coaching can equip you to support her through difficult experiences, like rejection. In parent coaching, you will learn effective ways to respond when your daughter shares a challenging experience and how to guide her so she develops strength and resilience.
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