According to a study of Big Brothers, Big Sisters in the USA, one of the largest mentoring organizations in the world
- Be a friend
- Don’t act like a parent
- Don’t try to be an authority figure
- Don’t preach about values
- DO FOCUS ON THE BOND
- Have realistic goals and expectations
- Focus on overall development, not performance and change
- Center initial goals on the relationship itself
- Emphasize friendship over performance
- Have fun together
- Youth spell love – TIME
- Informal activities lay the foundation for formal ones
- Shared activities become great discussion starters
- Give your protégé voice and choice in deciding activities
- Help them to explore possibilities and then make their choices
- Listen more than you talk
- Question more than you Preach
- Be positive
- Praise and encouragement build self-esteem
- Be supportive rather than critical – focus on solutions rather than problems
- Let the protégé have much of the control over what the two of you talk about
- Don’t push, be patient
- Be sensitive and responsive to cues
- Let them know that can confide in you without you becoming judgmental
- Listen
- Let youth vent without criticizing them
- When you listen they see you as a friend, not an authority figure
- Respect the trust your protégé places in you
- Respond in ways that show you understand. This is not the same as agree
- Reassure the protégé that you are there for them
- Advice should not be dispensed but mutually discovered
- If you have to convey concern or displeasure, do it with caring and understanding
- Sound like a friend not a parent… youth easily discern the difference
- Remember your relationship is with the youth and not the youth’s parent
- Maintain cordial contact, but you are not there to be a spy for parents. You are there to be a champion for the youth
- Keep your focus on the youth
- You are not there to bring about the parents wishes, but to help the youth discover their potential
- Be non-judgmental about the family
- You are responsible for building the relationship
- Take responsibility for making and maintaining contact
- Don’t expect adult to adult relationships
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A Mentor is one who holds up a Mirror for Reflection. What is reflected is the life of the protégé, not the brilliance of the mentor. There is no greater mistake than to mold others into one’s own image. The mentor’s job is not to shape, but to facilitate the discovery process. Wisdom is not imposed, it is portrayed. Character is not taught, it is provoked and inspired. He doesn’t teach a person skills, but shows a person a life. It’s a misconception that a mentor’s task is to do something for another person by teaching, correcting, or otherwise giving something the mentor possesses, something the protégé lacks. That’s Coaching. Mentoring is more “how can I help you” rather than “what should I teach you.” Its not something the mentor does, but helping the protégé to do something. Successful mentoring is not determined by what a mentor does, but by the responsive of the protégé to the image he sees as the mentor holds the protégé’s life up for personal reflection. Responsibility and initiative for growth lies in the reponsiveness of the protégé, not the mentor’s.
Game Description
“If I could see further than others, it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants.”
The mentor carves out and helps to create a space where learning can occur. It has boundaries of confidentiality, structure, and guidance, but is open. It is a safe place where both can be vulnerable with their questions, struggles, emotions and doubts. There is space for ideas, curiosity, wonder, and joy. It is a space in which the mundane, the ordinary can be a container of grace. It is a space in which the mentor is given increasing permission to ask the tough questions that will penetrate the masks most of us wear. It is a space where the protégé has no fear to confess failings and progress, to entrust the secrets of his heart, and reveal all his plans.
British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands
At one time, Andrew Carnegie was the wealthiest man in America. He went there from his native Scotland when he was a small boy, did a variety of jobs, and eventually ended up as the largest steel producer in the United States. At one time he had 43 millionaires working for him. In those days a millionaire was a rare person; conservatively speaking, a million dollars in Carnegie’s day would be the equivalent to at least $20 million today. A reporter asked Carnegie how he had managed to hire 43 millionaires. Carnegie responded that those men had not been millionaires when they started working for him, but had become millionaires as a result. The reporter’s next question was: “How did you develop these men to become so valuable to you that you have paid them this much money?” Carnegie replied: “Men are developed the same way that gold is mined. When gold is mined, several tons of dirt must be moved to get an ounce of gold; but one doesn’t go into the mine looking for dirt – one goes in looking for the gold.”