You see it in the faces of too many young Bermudians. Or, more precisely, you don’t.

The look of hope — of buoyant expectancy — which should be lighting their eyes is too often missing.

They should be embarking on young adulthood with a sense of wonder, a sense that anything is indeed possible if they believe in themselves and work diligently enough to attain their goals.

But their self-confidence as well as their faith in the world around them is hidden behind hurricane shutters of the soul hammered into place by the twopenny nails of scepticism, fear and mistrust.

They see an Island largely dominated by the empty promises and empty smiles of older generations.

And they anticipate what they fully expect will be empty futures for themselves.

Adults who man Bermuda’s cynicism industry, the one local growth sector since the onset of this Great Recession, eye the coming generation with a sense of weary resignation, nod knowingly and shrug their shoulders as if to ask, “Kids? What can you expect?”

Of course this stock response, variations of which are heard from every generation about the one which will succeed it, misses the point. In fact, it misses all kinds of points.

The young people now coming of age are the first in almost a century to embark on life in a Bermuda where their choices are narrowing, not expanding.

Not only are career opportunities increasingly limited but the feasibility of pursuing those which remain is slipping out of reach for a growing number of young people.

Further education and the chance to broaden cultural horizons beyond our shores is now a financial impossibility for far too many gifted youngsters.

And even some of those who receive university scholarships or unstinting financial support from their parents are returning home to face an exasperating Catch-22, one which is confronting more and more college graduates around the world.

Namely, in order to gain a job they need professional experience, which they lack; but in order to gain experience, they first need a job.

For those who are not academically inclined, the future appears to hold even less promise.

Ever since the immediate post-World War Two period the construction industry and associated trades have provided Bermuda with an invaluable economic backstop.

For fully 60 years successive generations of Bermudians have been able to earn livings, sometimes very handsome livings indeed, finding work in what amounted to an almost non-stop building boom.

It was a sector that gave every appearance of being largely impervious to the economic instability which has been racking the Island in recent years.

Or at least that was the case until recently.

With work on the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital’s new wing now complete and no other comparably scaled public or private sector projects even at the design stage, the construction industry is likely to undergo a major contraction in the very near future.

So many of those most in need of finding meaningful work, those who already feel a sense of social isolation and inadequacy, are going to find this traditional avenue of employment blocked to them in the short-term.

As former Premier Sir John Swan said recently, those from the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder are always most at risk in any community.

Not only do most of Bermuda’s violent offenders come from their ranks but, as Sir John underscored, even those who never get drawn into criminality are often themselves critically handicapped in terms of income, opportunity and overall quality of life.

And in Bermuda’s case, too many of the young people who fall into this category are emerging from a public school system which unintentionally reinforces their feelings of not being valued or wanted.

Those who fail to develop any sense of identity or self-worth during their formative years are extremely unlikely to do so as adults.

At a time when employment horizons are rapidly contracting even for the brightest and best-qualified young Bermudians, it’s imperative our public schools pursue programmes which can help to imbue the Island’s most vulnerable children with hope, enthusiasm and a sense of purpose.

Sir John specifically cited the work of American academic Adam Grant, whose well-known work in the field of motivational psychology includes efforts to ameliorate the damaging personal and social consequences of neglecting those who believe themselves to be marginalised, underappreciated and of no account.

Today there are a number of educational methods based on this area of research which have been demonstrated to help at-risk children build confidence in themselves and develop respect for others.

Bermuda should be actively considering adopting one or more of these approaches in our schools before another generation makes ready to put up the hurricane shutters on its expectations.