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Millennials report feeling confident in their ability to parent, but wait longer to do so.
increasingly needed. This generation, by necessity, is more relationship-focused than career-focused than the past two generations. You may notice that those clients who are creating their retirement years are often trying to make room for the same things millennials are already living.
Millennials have invested heavily in their relationships and community. They are already practiced at balancing their work or career focus against personal enjoyment, whereas many retirees have had a dominant career focus and are now eager to increase involvement with family, friends and personal interests before time and energy run out.
An understanding of the common presenting issues that bring millennials to therapy and ways to build a therapeutic dialogue can help reinforce this robust and energetic population.
Michelle Piper, MS, LMFT, graduated cum laude from Northwestern University,
blogs for www. narcissisticmother. com and has been in
private practice in California for nearly 20 years, specializing in life transition issues across the generations. Piper is a Clinical Fellow of AAMFT.
References
Feeney, N. (2015, May 11). Millennials now largest generation in the U.S. workforce. Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/3854518/ millennials-labor-force.
Fry, R. (2016). For first time in modern era, living with parents edges out other living arrangement for 18- to 34-year-olds. Pew Research Center. Retrieved fromhttp://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/05/24/ for-first-time-in-modern-era-living-with-parents-edges-out-other- living-arrangements-for-18-to-34-year-olds.
Luscombe, B. (2014, September 24). Why 25% of millennials will never get married. Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/3422624/ report-millennials-marriage.
McManus, J. (2017, January 5). More millennial moms, older houses, job and retirement meccas. Builder. Retreived from http://www. builderonline.com/builder-100/strategy/more-millennial-moms- older-houses-job-retirement-meccas_o.
4.Help millennials gain perspective on why their young adulthood is different than the generations before them. Understand the historical socio- economic context that drives many
of the differences between the client and his or her parents’ generation. Share socio-economic data with the client to broaden his or her historical perspective and better prepare the client to manage expectations of self and those of their intergenerational support network.
5.Assist them in understanding and negotiating boundary issues when there is resource interdependence between client and the family of origin or support network. Coach the client on how to discuss the different
generational drivers with other stakeholders, such as parents, in their lives when there are needs for financial and emotional support during times of transition.
Both parent and adult child can benefit from an open dialogue of how such an interdependence can lead to a collapse
of the necessary adult boundaries to
help the client maintain a healthy sense of self-worth. For instance, when a 30-year-old individual is living at home, comments on what the adult is wearing or when the adult comes home are better left unsaid and house rules that the homeowner requires for reduced to no rent are best discussed up front.
In sum, building therapeutic rapport with the millennial client is rewarding and
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