ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Call it “election depression.”

College professors have postponed exams and canceled classes. Universities are offering hug therapy, coloring-book therapy, even pet-a-dog therapy to help stunned students cope with last week’s election results. These schools are not helping their charges, they’re coddling them, raising and molding a generation of wimpy kids incapable of coping with reality. Seriously?

Cornell students organized a “cry-in” where the school staff supplied tissues and hot chocolate. Tufts University offered arts and crafts sessions to students depressed by Donald Trump’s victory. And the University of Michigan students could play with Play-Doh and color. What is this? Are these kids in college or in preschool? This lack of maturity in dealing with disappointment is alarming, and these universities should not be enabling this behavior.

This is a generation coming of age in a world where there are no winners and losers, where every child gets a trophy simply for effort. Many parents don’t allow their children to fail. When universities take over the parenting role and organize counseling services following an electoral disappointment, the absurdity reaches new heights. How about following the example of liberal leaders such as President Obama and Hillary Clinton, both of whom have said the country should give President-elect Trump a chance to lead.

Wouldn’t we want these universities to encourage the liberal students depressed by the election to instead congratulate their fellow students who supported Mr. Trump? I know that after my daughter’s soccer game, win or lose, she and her teammates shake hands with their opponents and move on to the next game.

If these kids can’t deal with the disappointment of this election, then I’m not sure how they will ever handle adulthood, because God knows there will be many more serious disappointments and losses in the decades to come.

If I were a professor, these are the lessons that I would teach: Struggles and disappointments build character. When you fall down, you pick yourself up and move forward. Don’t be wimpy, show strength, and know that the sun will come out tomorrow. Get involved and let your voice be heard in the public policy arena.

Shell-shocked liberal students need to realize that we still live in an exceptional country, a country where they have the right to protest, vote and express an opinion without living in fear from the state. I think of my father, who lived in Cuba in the 1950s when Fidel Castro seized control not only of the government but of the island’s universities as well. My father was studying public administration at the University of Havana when the communists came in and took over the building. Because he did not support Mr. Castro, he was not allowed to go back to school again and did not finish his studies.

Our pampered, election-depressed liberal students need to get a grip. We are not facing a dictatorship. We are not living under communist rule. We live in a country where elections are free and fair and where the people, not the government or the media, determine the future of our nation.

And I can assure these election-depressed young adults that President-elect Trump will actually surprise them. He will serve all Americans, young and old, focused on ensuring that America can prospe and our freedoms are protected. And when that prosperity arrives, these kids can actually find productive and rewarding jobs, assuming they escape the university “preschool” cocoon.

But first they better learn how to toughen up.

• Mercedes Schlapp is a Fox News contributor, co-founder of Cove Strategies and former White House director of specialty media under President George W. Bush.

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