“Millennials have reasons to be cheerful” is the title of an article written by Tom Switzer, published in The Age on Monday 28th May, 2018, page 19.

Most of my clients are Millennials. Millennials are also referred to as Gen Ys. Confused? Those titles are not easy to follow. They are apparently born between 1982 and 2000, so I can boast that I have two of my own; daughters aged 22 and 24. Are they cheerful? Mostly. Do they have good reason to be? Sure, most of the time, but there’s also a lot that makes millennials really anxious and I’m not so sure that it’s quite so easy as Tom Switzer thinks for them to “cheer up” and “ignore the alarmists”.

He states that we haven’t had so big a global population boom as predicted. For sure, “technological progress and economic growth have made our lives much better than we realise”, however many 20-somethings are:

• being defined by a number – their year 12 ATAR, which ranked them against their peers and makes the final year of school really stressful
• finding it hard to decide what to study after year 12 what with the ‘choice overload’ that exists in terms of course offering
• taking a long time to find relevant, meaningful full-time employment after completing tertiary study
• finding that contracts of employment are less than secure
• taking ages to save enough money to afford to rent a flat and move out of home
• being criticised for liking smashed avocado

So if your Millennial or Gen Y is not feeling cheerful, it may be that they need support, not a “should” from someone who can’t remember ever being stressed. Contact me if that’s true of your child.