“Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it… Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again.” –Steve Jobs
There seem to be endless posts on social media about the problem with millennials. The topic of these videos, articles, etc. focus on worth ethic or lack there of. Millennials are said to have higher rates of depression and anxiety because we are looking for life paths that have a “purpose” and are coming up empty handed. There is a notion that millennials want to influence change, or have high paying jobs but don’t want to put the work in. In short millennials are indolent dreamers.
I would like you to take a moment and think about how millennials came to be this way. Each generation has its own stereotype and time and time again it is said to be because of the way that generation was raised. But I don’t think that the solution to this “issue” is to be harder on your children. I think you should stop calling your kids smart. Stephen Hawking once said that “intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.” In my experience it isn’t change that millennials cannot adapt to, it is rejection and failure. When a child does well academically and you congratulate them by telling them smart studies have shown that when they face a problem they cannot solve they believe they failed because they aren’t smart. This leads to not only lower self-esteem but it means that in the future when they do not immediately succeed they will give up because they aren’t “smart” enough to solve the problem. This idea can be applied to sports or other talents as well. Imagine all the athletes, musicians, artists, and actors we wouldn’t have if they had given up the first time they lost or were rejected.
Instead of calling your children smart I propose that you congratulate them on working hard. Your child will associate success with the amount of energy and time they dedicated to the challenge. When faced with failure your child will not give up, they will work harder. Encourage your children, congratulate them on their successes. You can do this without associating success with a characteristic they believe they are born will. Intelligence is not fixed. Intelligence is motivation. Intelligence is perseverance. Intelligence is resilience.
We millennials were told how smart we were. That we could change the world. Nobody told us how hard it would be. We weren’t prepared for rejection. I don’t believe that wanting to have a purpose in life is our problem. When a person believes that their work is meaningful they are passionate. Our work ethic is lacking because when millennials are facing setbacks in the work place they believe it is because they are a failure and will never be able to overcome the setback.
So please, stop calling your kids smart.
