Youth mentors soon learn there
are many angry, disillusioned and confused children who need help. These
children can be of any age, race, creed or color. Many of them have gone
through personal experiences including poverty, tragedy or natural disaster.
They wind up in difficult relationships, serious family problems and broken
homes; some of them are orphaned, homeless and wandering the streets.
Disillusioned with respect to others and life, they simply exist, meanwhile
putting themselves and others at risk.
Children, too young to survive
on their own, are always at high risk when they have to struggle to survive.
They do not necessarily have other options they are aware of, but some of them
are fortunate enough to find youth mentors who they can relate to in a positive
and constructive way. At times, youth mentors find them.
Appropriate youth mentoring can
make a huge difference in the lives of children and help those who are at risk,
to regain and retain some degree of normalcy in their lives.
The expression, one significant other is important in youth mentoring for
children of all ages.
What does one significant other
imply?
Thefreedictionary.com suggests
this significant other is “a person, such as a family member or close friend,
who is important or influential in one's life.”
One significant other as a
youth mentor can be a neighbor, teacher or even a total stranger, who befriends
children and brings about changes in their lives. At times, it can be a
professional caregiver like a policeman, nurse or counselor. It can also be a
community leader or another, older teenager.
The article, “Mentoring
Disadvantaged Youth - The Smith Family” employs
the word disadvantage for
children in need of mentoring.
“Research shows that mentoring
is one of the most effective ways of sharing knowledge within communities and
providing a significant other for those who are lacking positive role models.”
Children who are homeless,
hungry and desperate, find themselves at risk in different ways like involvement
with alcohol, different kinds of drug abuse or drug trafficking. They may be in
trouble with the law for break and entry, destructive patterns of behavior,
stealing, etc.
In a state of panic, not
knowing what to do, children instinctively turn to those they think will help
them. Sometimes, the help they receive is appropriate, but not always. They may
also wind up used and abused by others who they have turned to for help.
When a successful youth
mentor-youth mentee relationship has been established between an older person
and a child, one that based upon a loving, caring and compassionate concern for
children, it has the potential to become a one significant other relationship
between the mentor and mentee. With mutual trust, honesty and respect, in
conjunction with the knowledge that the youth mentor has to offer to the youth
mentee, this relationship soon shows signs of appropriate, positive and
proactive nurturing.
Youth mentor-youth mentee
relationships are not always easy to establish. There can be innate paranoia,
fear, anxiety and mistrust in any child. This has to be resolved and that takes
patience, time and effort on the part of the mentor. Spending time together and
doing things with one another can help resolve negative, self-destructive
feelings.
By nurturing a one significant
other relationship, the youth mentor can help to resolve risk problems of
children. Those at risk may need professional counseling, intervention or
medical treatment.
At times, there may seem to be
many steps backwards, even while there is a small step forward in the right
direction. As the level of trust increases in children, they will gradually
begin to return to different kinds of social settings that involve others.
Group mentoring becomes a possibility.
There is a multiplicity of
serious risks in the lives of children, even when they come from good homes and
communities. This is true regardless of how old they are and the different
circumstances or situations with which they are faced. Life is not easy for
many children. Mentors willing to work with them on a one
significant other basis can help them to improve their lives significantly.
Youth mentoring with children
of all ages can appear to be a thankless task, but years later, youth mentors
may find that they have been instrumental in bringing about changes in the
lives of the children they have mentored. Many of their mentees grow up
and become youth mentors themselves, teaching what they have learned from their
youth mentors to others.
In other words, the youth
mentees of today are destined to become the youth mentors of tomorrow, helping
other children at risk.
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