On Mentors, Mentoring, and Mentees
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/16
Marilyn Price-Mitchell Ph.D. in Psychology Today talked about the importance of mentorship. The benefits to the mentee who receives the mentorship. A single adult who shows care and concern for a young person can change that young person’s life for decades. I know; other knows.
In fact, I know from both perspectives. Someone to listen your stories. A person to confide in. An individual to give guidance. To give and receive these gifts can be extraordinary, heartfelt, and life changing, I have been blessed to be able to mentor and lucky enough to have been mentored.
If the fit is right, the mentor-mentee relationship is extraordinary at times.
Price-Mitchell stated, “We understand the benefits of mentoring young people when we hear the powerful stories of teens whose lives have been changed by a single, caring adult. If you listen, those stories are everywhere.”
She relayed a similar great experience of being mentored by someone. Where the positives of the relationship accrued over time, she does have a doctorate after all.
“What we know about mentoring is that it matters to positive youth development. Now, one of the largest mentoring studies ever conducted continues to support this thinking and links mentoring to a reduction in bullying,” Price-Mitchell said.
There was a study done by Big Brothers Big Sisters Canada over five years. The children with the mentors were more confident with fewer behavioural problems.
Price-Mitchell continued, “Girls in the study were four times less likely to become bullies than those without a mentor and boys were two times less likely. In general, young people showed increased belief in their abilities to succeed in school and felt less anxiety related to peer pressure.”
This is all to the good. It shows the benefits for the mentorship that accrue compared to the control or no mentoring. These relationships require some finesse and remained quite complicated in their structure because every kid or adolescent is an individual.
“In my own research with teens who became engaged citizens, all of the young people in the study had naturally developed mentee-mentor relationships with adults sometime during their middle and high school years,” Price-Mitchell explained, “None were matched by organizations. Nonparent mentors – teachers, clergy, and civic leaders – were highly instrumental in how these teens learned to believe in themselves and tackle challenging goals – much like those in the Big Brothers Big Sisters study.”
The teens without typical help, e.g. poor whites, blacks, Native American kids, and especially currently boys. They then can benefit from these interventions. It can make a huge benefit to the other people in the process too. The mentors can grow individually in learning to give to others too.
She recounted research, “A study conducted by North Carolina State University showed that youth from disadvantaged backgrounds are twice as likely to attend college when they have a mentor, particularly a teacher.”
Those kids going through the greatest hardships can benefit the most from the interventions of others, especially because many minority kids and single parent kids can be subjet to worse social and emotional development.
They can suffer from discrimination, family stressors, and abuse.” Price-Mitchell stated, “While many studies have focused on the effects of mentoring disadvantaged teens, we know that ALL teens reap big developmental dividends from nonparent mentoring relationships during their high school years.”
If you want to grow as a person, whether in giving or receiving, a mentoring relationship can really change a life – for others and yourself. The qualities of a good mentor with youth, according to Price-Mitchell, are being supportive, an active listener, assertive in pushing the kid enough but not too much, having an authentic interest in the kid, working to foster self-decision making, and then also lending perspective and insight from an older person.
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