Frustrated Mother of a Millenial

Ok, so I covered intuition last weekend... Well, my intuition has been on the yellow to orange alert that last few months. My 14-yeer-old son fights my simple requests on every turn! Ok, I know he's a teenager... they are all rebellious. But I'm not talking rebellion; he's a great kid, good hearted and smart.

What I'm talking about it plain out stubbornness. I often spend 3 hrs. trying to get him to do a 5-15 min task. If I don't nag every 30 min. or so it will never get done. So I am stuck getting almost nothing done myself because I have to micromanage this young adult! I know I don't like doing some of those chores either, but when they need to be done, they need to be done, if I do them, it's done. But, being a good mother, I feel I need to teach him that everyone needs to pitch in to make the house run... and as a result the house isn't running, it's a disaster area because he diggs his heels in and just simply doesn't do it. Boy is this situation steping on my bliss!

Well, I discussed this with one of the customers at the shop... "Millenials" had come up in conversation. Being a teacher she seemed to know a little about them. I also discussed it a bit with my brother who said "Back in the day when I was young..... " I had to stop him there I'm not old enough to understand that kind of talk. LOL

So I turned to my computer, and did a little research.

There was quite a bit of information out there. Wow, computers do a lot to those developing brains. One very fascinating document described the difference between a child's approach to the computer vs. an adult.

"To interact effectively, he/she must be able to take in what is
on the screen in a whole-brain fashion, registering the whole screen with all
its different information as one interrelated body of information. Simply put,
the right brain detects the general and specific patterns and decodes the
symbols while the left brain analyses and decides on the logical next action.

Adults new to computing look sequentially at the screen, taking
a relatively long time to shift their gaze bit by bit from one part of the
screen to another, often zigzagging around in a rather panicky fashion while
they wonder what is relevant and whether they will damage anything. (I sadly
identified with this even though I am comfortable with computers.)

Children do not sit down at the computer with any preconceived
notions of technophobia or fear of failing the challenge, so they learn far more
quickly to make this whole-screen assessment, and then focus speedily on what
and how to do it. For this to happen, there are thousands of unconscious
calculations taking place within a second."

http://archive.wcape.school.za/mm99/cd/conf99/proceedings/106/index.htm

Wow, to be in a computer geared mind! Then I happily discovered an outline of the differences of Generation X (which I am supposedly a member of) and the Millenials.

Generation X

• Born 1965-1976 - 51 million of us

  Accept diversity

  Pragmatic/practical

  Self-reliant/individualistic

  Reject rules

  Killer life

  Mistrust institutions

  PC

  Use technology

  Multitask

  Latch-key kids

  Friend-not family

  (I can relate to most of these
  descriptions)

  
  

Millennials

• Born 1977 – 1998 - 75 million of them (So I know I'm not the
  only mother going through this!)
  
• Celebrate diversity (Diversity of choices of whether or not
  you listen to your mother? I'm into divergent thinking but it's gotten over the
  top.)


• Optimistic/realistic (I'd have to argue with the realistic
  part. Or he hides his understanding of reality. I'm probably just another
  game.)


• Self-inventive/individualistic (this is why they also call
  this generation the "me" generation.)


• Rewrite the rules (here, he rewrites my rules, by just not
  doing what I ask to do. He plans his stubbornness carefully.)


• Killer lifestyle (Well, this explains why his motivation has
  taken a vacation, he's killing me here!!!)


• Irrelevance of institutions (I suppose I am an institution
  then???)


• Internet (Social Networking is how he communicates!)


• Assume technology (Yeah, like if he had an X-box instead of a brain he'd be happy.)

• Multitask fast (No kidding here, he can play x-box games,
  chat to his friends and watch TV all at the same time. But it takes him 3 hrs to do a 15min chore; maybe I'm not giving him enough to do at the same
  time!)


• Nurtured (he's definitely that being an only child!)



• Friends = family (Oh, I see, if I take away his technology
  that he uses to spend time with his "family" then I'm depriving him of his
  "family," --- I tell ya, he's going to be a orphan if he doesn't start stepping
  up.)
  http://www.abanet.org/lpm/lpt/articles/mgt08044.html
  

Wow now that was eye opening! Do I sound too Generation Xer there?

The same article did give some mentoring suggestions as well for these Millenials:

• Structured, supportive work environment (I beleive he has
  this)


• Personalized work (the trick is to get him to understand it
  is personal)


• Interactive relationship (Interactive as I nag!)


• Be prepared for demands (Oh I know about the demands),
  highexpectations (for who, me or him?)

I suppose I have been looking at this problem in the wrong way. He'll have to experiance some Generation X practical discipline and let him figure out an interactive way around it without rewriting the rules and come around to celebrating the diversity of his own mother. LOL

Anyway, I am sure we'll see this through, but it's the getting there that is making my yellow and orange intuitive alarms scream. But according to the lists above we aren't all that different. Just a bit of change in the perspective.

Here is another interesting site but I found little connection with my situation or my other research. It talks about them being a "we" generation and how they want to make an impact on the world. At this point I don't believe this is on my son's agenda, unless he can save the world with an X-box controler. http://www.youngmoney.com/careers/career_trends/050315