There are parents who are struggling to explain why their capable children are stuck at home, unable to begin their adult lives. There are also young adults who are anxious to begin realizing their potential, yet they are facing rejections from potential employers who feel they are graduating without the skills the workplace needs the most. What happened?
Life used to be much simpler. It simply wasn’t possible to delay the maturing process. With no smartphones, previous generations had no ability to stay invested in juvenile interests. That meant that, largely out of boredom, previous generations learned how to be adults thanks to the slow and steady form of osmosis that naturally occurs when a child follows their parents around as they live an adult life.
The question is, how is parent supposed to teach something they formerly never learned? How do we teach what still needs to be known, once that pass-the-baton culture has been disrupted by technology? Because today, many employers are frustrated by a generation of young adults whose choice to ‘wait in the car, and surf the web,’ has left too many recruits without basic human skills.
Today’s employers now complain that new graduates lack initiative, or the ability to learn quickly. They also note that many young adults struggle to effectively communicate with others, likely because they have witnessed so little professionally-based, adult-to-adult communication. Many even struggle with basic human abilities like maintaining eye contact, listening well, or remembering important duties.
While previous generations saw life forcing a level of maturity onto them, the effectiveness of modern forms of education and parenting have been heavily impacted by things like apps, screen time, and social media. By being intentionally disruptive to the natural maturing process, apps attempt to turn their voluntary, go-between status into a necessity.
It can seem fine that a shy adult uses a banking or insurance app to avoid the unpredictability of normal human interactions. But that ability to temporarily avoid reality is ultimately crippling once the person ages, and their jobs and/or life partners begin to rely on them to maturely fulfill many roles and functions in-person.
Likewise, texting and social media help create a false sense of reality, wherein we can edit our way past having interpersonal skills, or communication abilities. But a problem inevitably emerges in real life, as soon as an employer or romantic partner expects us to be able to utilize those basic human skills, in real time.
For my part, after many years of dealing with adults who had experienced the very damaging downstream effects of those changes, I have responded by developing a new, specialized form of Awareness Training.
Of course, there is no replacement for the massive amount that is learned through direct experience. But even if someone starts late, that critical learning is not even possible if a new worker doesn’t even know what those lessons looks like, or where to find them.
By obtaining greater levels of awareness, and with a clearer idea of what qualifies as ‘adulting,’ modern young adults can learn how to effectively respond to the negative, debilitating effects that are generated by the growing number of new technologies and systems that increasingly influence modern society today.
This training helps young adults develop a stronger sense of self, a stronger sense of direction, as well as the confidence and courage required to enact it. It also helps them develop a workable plan to actually start their own independent life.
It’s a weird, nebulous thing to teach. But I now have enough successful examples of happy parents and children to be able to say that, if the young adult is open to it, I can often make a meaningful material difference in their approach to their adult life.
If you are anxious to begin the next phase of life, or if you are a parent that wants to see your young adult children thrive, then I may be offering just the sort of guidance you or your child may benefit from.
If you would like to learn more, for a no-obligation consultation, please contact me at scottis@relaxandsucceed.com, and we can arrange to meet to discuss the very considerable opportunities that emerge once people have awakened their true strengths and capabilities.
Enjoy your day!
peace. s
NOTE: If you want to know more about my background and/or approach, the links in this note will get you to further information in that regard.
