Who are Generation Y?

children and young adults born between the early 1980s and 2001 as "The Millennial Generation," sometimes known as Generation Y. Although Generation Y has been a frequently used term used in popular culture, Howe and Strauss note that in a 1997 ABC News online poll, the members of the generation themselves overwhelmingly chose Millennials as their moniker.

Millennials, the children of the Baby Boomers and Generation X, exhibit quite different characteristics from their predecessors. Teachers, coaches, and others who work with children and young adults of Generation Y need to understand their unique traits in order to work with them successfully.

Members of Generation Y aren't typically wanted by the police, but they have been very wanted by their parents in the sense that their births have been the most planned for and anticipated in history. By 1998, the number of Gen Y births had surpassed that of their Boomer-era counterparts, as more Boomers and Gen Xers are starting and expanding their families, many times relying on fertility treatments to do so.

Because Millennials were so wanted and planned for by their parents, they have also become the most watched-over. generation in history. In sharp contrast to the "latch-key kid" mentality that marked many Gen Xer childhoods, Gen Y children have little unsupervised free time, with schools doling out more homework than ever before and parents scheduling them into more and more after-school and weekend activities.

As Generation Y is spending more time than ever supervised by parents and other authority figures, they tend to trust and respect authority more than previous generations. Rather than rebelling against parents, teachers, government, and religious institutions, Millennials believe in following the rules, precipitating a drop in violent crimes and teen pregnancy in their age group that began in the late 1990sCompared to their rather cynical Generation X elders, the children of Generation Y are a generally positive, cutting-edge bunch. They are the first generation to have been exposed to computers and technology since birth and view themselves as problem-solvers and world-changers.

Howe and Strauss note that Millennials rejected the name Generation Y due to its close association with Generation X; rather than wanting to be seeing as simply the "next" generation, Millennials want to be seen as a new and different generation that is not related to (although, obviously, still respectful of) previous generations. In general, Millennials are positive, goal-oriented team players who work well with authority, and as such, parents and other adults can easily guide them toward being the next great generation of leaders