Family Feud has been one of America’s favorite game shows for a very long time—back to when Richard Dawson was the host. Even as a child, I was a big fan of Family Feud—to the point where I even downloaded the app and played by myself. I know, riveting childhood I had; that being said, I think that there are definitely some valuable life lessons one can learn from the game show.
One lesson that can be learned from Family Feud is that you should take loss with grace; simply, just don’t be a sore loser. Many times, families on Family Feud lose by even one point, which is totally devastating. Regardless of how they really feel, they take losses with a smile and laugh it off (hey, they do get to come back the next week). The same goes for families who lose the first round and don’t even get to go to the Fast Money Round. They don’t get to come back, and they’re still all smiles.
Another life lesson that can be learned from watching Family Feud is that no matter how many times you do lose, that you should just keep trying—perseverance. I’ve seen episodes where the same family comes back multiple times and they just keep losing. Honestly, it’s inspiring how much tenacity they have to keep coming back and never giving anything less than 100 percent.
Teamwork is another life lesson that Family Feud teaches us. This lesson may be obvious, but it is still important. No matter how challenging the topic, or how poorly the team is performing, each family still manages to stay positive and try their hardest. And, in order to accomplish these things, they must stick together and support one another.
This brings us to our last life lesson— consistent encouragement. I think that this is the most important life lesson from Family Feud. Come on, we’ve all watched an episode of Family Feud and picked out the one contestant in a family that gives all the wrong answers.
Not only are these answers wrong at times, they’re usually quite absurd. His/her answers often make you think “okay, did s/he really just say that,” but regardless of how insane the answers are the family is right behind the contestant screaming things like “good answer!” This consistent encouragement and support is a life lesson that, while when watching we may think is ridiculous, we should employ more in our daily lives.
So, how do these Family Feud life lessons apply to you? As the start of the semester here at Monmouth University we could all use some of these lessons to teach us to step into our semesters with a positive outlook. First, the lesson not to be a sore loser can be employed in everyday life as a student because we don’t always get what we want. Maybe we didn’t get that class we wanted during drop/add week or maybe we didn’t get the partner we wanted to work with in class, but we need to remember that we should take these “losses” with grace and move on.
Second, the families’ perseverance is totally inspiring for the life of a college student. No matter what, we need to keep trying in our classes or in our clubs. We need to make sure our voices are heard! If that doesn’t happen right away, we can’t give up! Whether that means countless hours in the library or at office hours or putting in the extra volunteer hours in our clubs.
Teamwork is another life lesson applicable to college life. Group work is dreaded, but we can learn from these families that we need to try to include everyone and encourage all ideas.
This consistent encouragement goes hand-in-hand with the lesson of teamwork. If, in our classes, we are able to be more positive about teamwork and really try to cooperate with one another, it would be more likely that we end each group assignment with a smile, just like the families on Family Feud.
