Good Morning! Here’s the Monday Morning Blog!
Have you had a chance to touch base with your teen? Check in with them and ask them if they need help with anything. Be open to what they may bring up to you and work with them to come up with solutions. One of the things you can ask them about it what they want for Christmas! It could lead to a great discussion and would be a great way to find out for your Christmas shopping.
December is Mentoring Month
It takes a village to raise teenagers these days. Having a mentor or coach by your teen’s side will help them by having another caring adult they can reach out to help them succeed. Yes, sometimes our teens need to seek out adults other than their parents for help and advice. Try not to let this hurt your feelings. Be proud of them for reaching out and getting the support they need.
Sometimes the mentors for our teens can be a teacher or counselor at school, a sport or activity coach, a neighbor or friend, or someone who shares an interest with them. Keep these ideas in mind when helping your teen build a network of trusted and caring adults to reach out to.
With it being the holidays, we are not only going to talk about mentoring, but also about some activities that you can do with your teen and community to give back to others. Having your teenager involved in these activities is a way of mentoring them. By showing them how important service to others is in their lives.
This month’s blog topics for Mentoring Month will be
12/12 – Teen Challenge – Finding a Mentor for your teen
12/19 – Inspirational People – People who mentor and work with teens and others
12/26 – Teen Resource – MENTOR.org
Follow this link to take a look at my mentor page and find out how I am working with this month’s theme of Mentoring. Selma’s Mentor Page
My Monthly News
Here is the monthly news for December 2022!
Mentoring a Dream website goes live
Mentoring a Dream (MAD) has always been that next step in my mission to help teens succeed. One of the ways is to provide the adults in their lives with resources to help them reach out to their teens through the noise of everyday life.
Next month, Mentoring a Dream’s website will be going live. We will be migrating the mentoring focused material to MAD and Selma’s site will become more focused on books and writing. Each site will have a link to the other one, so you will still be able to access the material from both sides.
We are excited to embark on this new journey. With the four quarterly themes of diversity, mental health, peer pressure and bullying MAD will dig a little deeper into these areas and provide information to help parents talk to their teens and help them through the challenges that these themes present for them.
Bullying Information Guide
In my Bullying Information Guide, I provide tips to adults on how to talk to your teens about the topic of bullying. This free resource is available through signing up for my email list, either through Selma P. Verde or through Mentoring a Dream.
You can subscribe to my email list by filling out your email, first name and last name in the subscribe boxes on the top of this page. If you are already on my email list, you may have already received your copy. Did you know that another benefit to being on the email list is you will receive the news and freebies before they are released to everyone else?
Keep watching for updates on big things coming for 2023.
Writing Updates
I continue to work on a short story about one of the characters in Shawn’s Way. Josh’s Story is about how Josh Alberts becomes one who bullies. I look forward to sharing his story with you in early 2023.
The other big writing project on docket is getting The Street’s Way ready for editing! Be ready for the continuing story of all of The Way Series characters in The Street’s Way, coming your way in late 2023!
The Way Series a great idea for Christmas giving
Looking for a couple of good teen coming-of-age reads focusing on teen challenges to put under your tree? Check out The Way Series.
Book #1 – The Hard Way – is the story of Paul Jones and his starting his freshman year of high school and how he has to navigate dealing with pressure from his peers to do things to fit in.
Book #2 – Shawn’s Way – is a continuation of Paul’s journey from The Hard Way but now we meet a new freshman, Shawn Townson, who is forced to navigate being the target of a bully. An upperclassman at his school is taking out his frustration on Shawn.
Book #3 – The Street’s Way, is a continuation of The Way Series and introduces Mikala to the storyline as a runaway and homeless teen. To be released in late 2023!
Follow this link to my books tab to learn more about the series and to pick up your copies!