Mentoring Minutes. Robin Cox
in sole parent families with low academic competence is almost twice as high as the proportion of those in couple families.
•Children in stepfamilies tend to perform less well academically.
•Divorce (as shown in Australian research) has more enduring negative consequences for boys than for girls possibly due to the absence of a male role model. This suggests a lack of consistent discipline.
•Sole parent families, despite the inherent difficulties they face, may also raise their children well and successfully, though on average the risks are greater.
Mentoring tip: Great mentors “always” celebrate their mentees’ growth and achievements.
Mentoring moments
Fourteen-year-old Jacob was struggling to find his way. His parents had divorced and both had married new partners. Jacob was lost and lonely in a boarding house.
Twenty years later he contacted me to thank me for moving alongside him. This is Jacob’s story:
Thought I would drop you a line and hear how you are. I often think of you and how you voluntarily took me under your wing, so to speak during my time at [the school], encouraging and guiding me through the often irrational and rudderless years of one’s teens! One incident sprang to mind. During my grade seven year, when I was opening and locking the club room, for which you awarded me a generous portion of service points (many thanks!!), you recommended I read Eric Liddle’s biography [the story on which the film, Chariots of Fire was based]. In retrospect the story had a profound effect on my psyche . . . I am extremely grateful for all you did for me: all those hours when you threw to me in the cricket nets, and I would sometimes manage to straight bat a ball out of the front, and off you would jog to fetch it. I would like you to know that your actions have had a positive, material effect on my life, both in a faith and sporting sense. Although I only played a handful of games for the university first cricket team, I think I achieved my potential on the [other sport] field, and you were a big motivation behind that.
Jacob’s story reminds mentors that the true impact of many mentoring relationships might only be known many years later, and after the mentee pauses to reflect on their life journey. This is a critical point many sponsors of youth mentoring programs fail to understand, as they expect a “quick-fix” solution to the challenges which youth face.
Mentoring tip: You are a courageous pioneer as you venture into the unexplored territory of a youth’s life. What an exciting challenge!
Week 7
Mentoring Reflections
My mentor said, “Let’s do it,” not, “You do it.”
—Jim Rohn
Day 1: Mentoring adolescents from high-risk environments
There might be occasions when you wonder, as a mentor of an adolescent mentee living within a high-risk environment, whether you genuinely can contribute much that is positive to this young life.
Let me share some ideas from youth mentoring research to encourage you either to keep on keeping on as a mentor, or to join a youth mentoring program focused on youth who live in high-risk environments, and where you receive professional support and encouragement.
•Encourage your mentees to reach their potential, and consistently speak positive messages of “hope” into their lives.
•Help and guide your mentees to become self-sufficient, productive citizens.
•Improve your mentee’s conflict resolution skills.
•Guide your mentees towards more reliable and responsible attendance at school or work.
•Improve your mentee’s social and communication skills in relationships with family, peers, and extended family. Also focus on behavior, attitudes, and appearance.
•Enhance a sense of social responsibility in your mentee’s life.
•Encourage your mentees to make positive life choices.
•Develop positive values in your mentee’s lives, often modeled most effectively by your exemplary attitude and lifestyle.
•Improve your mentee’s self-image through your interactions with them.
•Expose your mentees to positive and new experiences, such as community involvement, and how to respectfully understand different cultures and activities.
Retired school principal and vertical tutoring systems expert Peter Barnard17 reminds us how important networks are in a young person’s life:
From a child’s point of view, it makes sense to be surrounded by a number of supportive personnel options and to have leadership, mentoring, and support on tap everywhere. The greater the number and availability of connections (nonlinear), the more stable, resilient, and adaptive the person and organization. Being better connected and supported all the time is a better means of building resilience than attending a pro-social program some of the time.
Mentoring tip: Sow a mentoring seed and reap a positive person of influence who could one day confidently impact the world.
Day 2: Mentors motivate and inspire
Well-known mentoring expert Rey Carr18 points out that youth need additional adults in their lives to provide them with opportunities for the development of self-esteem, academic ability, and to learn how to become personally responsible for the choices they make: “Mentors can act as motivators, guides, and sources of inspiration to assist young people to successfully manage life experiences. Ultimately mentors can increase the likelihood that young people will benefit from educational services, reduce the possibility of leaving school early, and contribute to a successful transition between the school and work worlds.”
Rey also shared: “A natural mentor is typically a person from outside of our family who plays an empowering role to help mentees achieve life goals and dreams, explore alternatives, and deal with life challenges.”
Mentoring expert Dr. Susan Weinberger19 highlights the power of mentoring:
In the United States, chronic student absenteeism is a hidden educational crisis. It is associated with a variety of adverse consequences, including individual course failure, risk of not graduating, and poor socio-emotional outcomes. One promising strategy is to deliberately match mentors with students struggling with attendance. Once mentors know the source of the problem, they are helping students to find solutions through a variety of successful strategies. This is really good news.
Mentoring tip: Share your burning passions or ideas that drive your life with your mentee with empathy and sensitivity. “Always” be a positive person of influence.
Day 3: Prescriptive v developmental mentoring
A mistake some mentors make is to enter a mentoring relationship with a prescriptive approach. When mentors follow a prescriptive approach, they might do one or more of the following:
•try to save or rescue the mentee;
•try to reform or transform the mentee by setting goals too early in the relationship;
•adopt more of a parental or authoritative role;
•emphasize behavior change more than develop the relationship with the mentee;
•have difficulty meeting with the mentee regularly and consistently;
•try to instill a set of values that are different from, or inconsistent with, those the mentee expects at home;
•ignore the advice of program staff, where a mentor is linked to a youth mentoring program.
Researchers state that after nine months only 30 percent of mentors and mentees in a prescriptive relationship meet regularly.
However, in a developmental relationship, these same researchers state