Bermudian children grow up with a “sense of entitlement” as parents are wrongly telling them they will walk straight into a job after completing their education.This was the hard-hitting message given to moms and dads who attended a public forum on why the Island's young and educated are unemployed.The crowd of about 200 people was told that university graduates wrongly assumed they were “entitled” to jobs in their chosen field despite the economic downturn.All three panellists at the meeting at Warwick Workman's Club last week talked about children being given a “false sense of security” by their parents. They said children end up believing the “big promise” that the “world owes them something”.Prospect Primary School counsellor Anthony Peets said parents were responsible for shaping the thinking of their children.He said: “Of course parents want their kids to sustain themselves as they know they won't last forever. Children are being told to do well in school, pay attention to their teachers, get the best grades then go to college. That's it. These things that we say to young people should reflect the world we live in, but the world has changed.”Mr Peets said Bermuda was now part of a competitive job market where employment opportunities “were transported round the world in a split-second”.He said parents needed to face this reality and help instil “the right work ethic into young people” rather than leading them astray with “all this big promise stuff”.Mr Peets said: “Unfortunately our young people are still following a pattern that someone has communicated to them.“They come home and look for jobs and feel they are absolutely entitled to a job because they have a university degree.“There is this sense of entitlement, but the world does not owe you anything, it really doesn't.”Teacher Phillip Maybury, who also works at Prospect Primary School, said young Bermudians needed to “stop thinking about me, me, me” and “collectively come together to think about we”.He said: “Young people have this sense of entitlement. They think we went school; we came back, now we get a job.“Young people have to ask themselves what have they done to prepare for employment. Limited experience from school is not enough for most jobs.“Young people need practical experience and need to make the contacts, before they even go away to school.“Young people currently have a false sense of security and we need to eliminate that.”Lawyer Eugene Johnston said: “We should be raising our children to find jobs. If parents are just teaching their children to get an education then they have failed as parents.“That's not the truth of the real world, an education is only part of the road you have to travel, you have to deal with how you apply your skills.”He added: “I have a big problem with entitlement. When you bring a child into this world you have the responsibility to give them the best chance to succeed.“But you can't lie to them about what happens after education or you'd better find them a job yourselves.”The heated public forum on Thursday evening was organised by Warwick North East PLP MP Dale Butler, who said the economy and employment was a high priority issue for many of his constituents.Mr Peets said employment was about “so much more” than a university education as young people had to “prove they were up to the job”.He said “things are definitely difficult” but urged young people to be willing to start at the bottom and work their way up by even offering to work “for free if needs be”.He said: “People say over and over again ‘I need a job' but you have to prove you have the skills to execute the job.”Mr Peets also encouraged young people “to show entrepreneurship” by thinking about new businesses they could set up with a small amount of money.He said: “We need to see more action. Young people have to take ownership of their responsibilities.“They can't keep making excuses as nothing in life is promised.”Mr Maybury urged young people to “look in the mirror” to see what their talents were, then combine their knowledge with learning, as they couldn't constantly be “spoon-fed”.He said: “You can't think one-dimensional anymore. You have to look at what talents you have and get these talents into the workforce.”Mr Maybury also suggested some young people “were being held back by their mates” and went on to say that whatever type of work was chosen “it never makes you less of a person”.The panellists faced a barrage of questions and comments from the crowd, including a 26-year-old unemployed man who said he was “insulted” to hear Bermudians being accused of entitlement.The man said he had a degree in computing and had lost his job because of the economic downturn, but then he saw it re-advertised “with a lot of extra specs in it”.He said: “I don't think I'm entitled to any job but this is Bermuda I know who applied for the job and I know who got it.“Nepotism is one of the highest reasons that people get jobs round here.”Another unemployed young man questioned why expatriates were still working in entry-level jobs in the hospitality industry. He said: “I don't have a job. I don't care what little they are getting paid, I want what they are getting.”Linda Trott, who works in recruitment, said she spent up to four hours going through 100-plus applications for every entry-level job and she'd seen “people with masters [degrees] wanting to sweep the floor”.She also spoke out about several “ workplace injustices”, including job start dates being put back, Bermudians having to work with non-English speakers and companies not paying social insurance contributions.