Please Don’t Be the Voice of Reason

If you are an adult dealing with a high school student- or an even younger person- I BEG you not to try to temper the student’s big dreams, no matter how unrealistic they seem.

I realize if you are a parent, you want to protect your child at all costs from disappointment and heartbreak.

And if you are a guidance counselor (the only person they likely will encounter whose job it is to give them advice), the worst thing that can happen is that you advise a student to apply to a list of colleges and they don’t get into any of them.

But the voice of reason is often the voice of doom. Or mediocrity. Settling.

And not allowing young people to dream big dreams and really reach for them is like telling them to give up now, just don’t try too hard.

Everyone faces disappointment and heartbreak at some point in their lives- it’s inevitable. Why disappoint them and break their hearts now by telling them they won’t be able to do something great? They may not accomplish the big dream they have now- what life presents often changes the dream, though it doesn’t necessarily make it any less ambitious- but in that trying, that reaching, that believing they can do anything, they are much more likely to accomplish something great than if they listen to the naysayers and shrink their goals.

Instead of trying to get them to be more reasonable, why not really listen to them and help them make a plan? Or give them an opportunity to try out their dream in some way? If they want to be Bill Gates, get them a junked old computer and let them take it apart to see how it works. If they want to be Oprah, suggest they create a talk show in the basement and then videotape it for them. Let them feel their dream, let them taste it.

If you are a guidance counselor, there’s no harm in getting students to put a “safety school” on their college application list, but if they get into every school they apply to, that’s just as bad, in my opinion, as getting into none.

If you are a parent, just be there for them when they are disappointed and heartbroken. Help them lick their wounds and, when they are ready, encourage them to get up and take another step toward their goal.

And then when they are standing at the podium or giving an interview to Sports Illustrated or Wired or People Magazine, they can thank you for believing in them. Not just you parents, but you guidance counselors and you teachers and you coaches and you mentors and you friends of the family. Think about it. They never thank the ones who tell them not to bother to try, do they?

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