The state government announced in the evening that profound changes in life and work had been discussed under the heading “Wealth of opportunities in Vorarlberg”. Mainly political, educational and social services, participated in the ensuing debate.
What can we do to help children and young people navigate their own path without fear of the future? The experts' conclusion: Young people should be allowed to have their own experiences – and they can endure a lot.
Wrongly “Generational Snowflake”
Lazy, flighty and addicted to social media – young people have a bad image and a hateful nickname: “Generation Snowflake”. It should describe young people who can't stand anything. This label is completely unfair, family researcher Wolfgang Masal says: “The previous generations have different ideas about how the world should be and, in my opinion, try too hard to impose this on young people, they say what is allowed. do and what they are not allowed to do. Things are getting tighter here for the younger generation. In my view, a sentence from Sigmund Freud rings true here: winning by letting go.”
Young people should take responsibility early on and have the opportunity to have their own experiences. Failure is allowed, and even important, Mazal says: “For good reasons, people try to accommodate themselves financially and avoid difficulties. This is legitimate, but not enough in my opinion. You should learn to walk when the ground is slightly dusty and rocky.
How do you build resilience?
Good intentions are not always well done, but sheltered children have a tough time in everyday life. Psychologist Petra Krasl-Riederer sees this repeatedly in her work: “Because they don't face the simple tasks of their lives, they don't have the opportunity to develop problem-solving skills. A lot is taken from them. Young people are adaptable, they are high performers, they are talented. But we cannot determine whether they have developed resilience because they have never had the suffering they must have experienced to develop these skills.
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State Parliament Punishment
Annual parliamentary hearings (working conferences) give parliamentarians and interested members of the public an opportunity to delve deeper into a topic outside the business of day-to-day politics. State parliamentary committees decide their respective topics every year. This year it is the Vorarlberg People's Party (VP). The findings of keynote speeches by experts and the subsequent debates generally flowed through state parliamentary affairs.
Lectures on the Future of Youth
“Life and Future of Children and Youth in Vorarlberg”: University Professor Wolfgang Masal (Institute for Labor and Social Law, University of Vienna) sees creating the future as a cross-generational task full of possibilities. For their success, different trends must be taken into account in political decisions: among others, the ubiquitous acceleration of different areas of life or the addition of social media to classic relationships and the increasing impoverishment of relationships. Further challenges include changing security situations and resource availability.
“The world of work in 10 or 20 years – what awaits today's children and youth?”: Bernhard Bereuter (AMS Vorarlberg, Managing Director) identified the pandemic, digitization, a significant shift in values and a changed approach to work as the current drivers of change in the working world. Future work environments will be more flexible, digital, international and ecological. They change in some subtle ways and some in elaborate ways. Cross-professional skills and lifelong learning are becoming increasingly important for emerging employment sectors.
“How do children and young people become resilient?”: Petra Grassl-Riederer (promente – Children and Youth Oberland, regional administration) discussed the concept of resilience. It refers to the ability of a dynamic system (human) to successfully adapt to various disturbances and uncertainties. Above all, he identified the stability of family relationships and the quality of educational institutions as influential factors in promoting individual resilience.
