Generation NeXt Parenting

Millennial Generation ready to take on world . . .

Today, I took my thirteen-year-old daughter to an interview for a part-time job, working a few hours a week bussing tables at a local café. Leslie is confident, bright, and has big plans for her future. She considers learning new skills and interacting with people a benefit toward her college goals. Before turning in her application, Leslie considered the work environment and was pleased to discover the owner was a Christian who would provide an “uplifting” place for her to work. Wow. When I was thirteen I was too shy to place a Big Mac order at McDonalds!

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of reading on this new generation of youngsters called “Millennials” who were born between 1982 and 2002, and I’ve discovered that the same type of thoughtful and visionary characteristics I see in my own kids are being noted by researchers. And as a group of young people, their future does look bright.

One great article on this topic is "Millennial Generation ready to take on world."

While the whole article is worthy of a read, here are some highlights I picked up on. The following are quotes from Dr. Terri Manning, associate vice president for Institutional Research and the director of the Center for Applied Research at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, N.C.:

• “Millennials are born to parents who are often well-educated and over-involved, who reject phrases such as ‘Because I said so,’ and instead treat their children as friends. There is a strong connection between the social lives of the parents and their children, they share values, and even like the same kinds of music.”

• “[Millennials] are close to their families, accept diversity as a norm, prefer the meaningful to the mundane, and are high achievers with a natural ability for multi-tasking. They can retool and recycle their skills and reinvent themselves for the numerous careers they know they will have in the course of their lifetimes.”

Of course, not everything about this generation is seen as positive. And there are two ways of looking at Millennials:

“They are spoiled rotten brats whose parents give them everything — we mostly hear that from teachers,” Manning said. “But we also hear the Millennial Generation is extremely talented and will bring technology and teamwork skills to the workforce.”

So, what do you think? What pluses and negatives have you witnessed concerning this new generation?

posted by Tricia Goyer @ 8:29 AM