Good Morning! Here’s the Monday Morning Blog?
How did the holidays go for you and your family? I hope you enjoyed spending time together however you and yours chose to celebrate. Now we are headed towards new year celebrations next weekend with the coming of 2023!
This post will be the last teen resource post that will be posted on Selma’s blog. Starting next month, Teen Resource posts will all show up on Mentoring A Dream’s website. Be sure to follow us over there, or subscribe to the email list to receive a link to the blog post on a weekly basis. Fill out the boxes found at the top of this blog page.
December’s Theme – Mentoring Month
Sometimes our teens dream of doing something which we may not know much about. Upon learning about these activities, we as parents and caring adults can support their dreams by helping them seek out someone who may be able to provide more information and help them achieve it.
Mentors are people who have real world experience in something you or your teen may have an interest in pursuing. Whether it be a specific job, sport, dance or other activity, a mentor would be a great resource for some information about it, give advice on what it takes to get there, or even help them achieve their goals, if they decide to do it.
This month’s resource is a great resource of information about becoming a mentor or to finding a mentor. An organization called MENTOR.
MENTOR
Teens and young adults with a mentor are 52% less likely to skip school and 78% more likely to volunteer in their communities. So, having a mentor for your teen or young adult can have positive impacts on the choices your teen makes for their lives.
The mission of MENTOR is to
Close the Mentoring Gap
Drive equity through quality mentoring relationships with young people
MENTOR also provides many opportunities to help people get involved in mentoring. Either as one who mentors or as one being mentored. Here are a couple of the resources and tools found on their website.
Becoming a Mentor
On the Become a Mentor page of their website, Mentoring.org, we see this quote.
“When you were young, did you know how to study for a test or make plans for college? Do you remember wanting your first car or part-time job?”
Some teens and young adults are lucky to have parents who are engaged in what they are doing or a neighbor who sees something in them and wants to help. Others have to figure out these life choices on their own. As adults, we have probably made those choices and have a story to share about how we did it. These stories could be helpful for teens navigating these same choices. Why not share them?
Current Mentoring Campaigns
Two campaigns MENTOR is currently involved in to get the mentoring message out there are
National Mentoring Month
January is National Mentoring Month, which was my monthly theme in 2022. Through their website, MENTOR highlights the importance of relationships and how mentoring can benefit not only the one being mentored, but also the one doing the mentoring.
Mentoring Amplifies
This quote is found on the campaigns page of the MENTOR website,
“Mentoring amplifies change, one relationship at a time. So let’s raise our voices and make the world a place of opportunity for all.”
By having a relationship with a mentor, a teen or young adult may find a different way of approaching their life choices. It is an important step to helping teens and young adults overcome the challenges they face growing up. Having those one-on-one conversations and sharing knowledge can make a difference, one person and one situation at a time.
Mentoring Connector
In previous posts, I have talked about finding a mentor. Are you looking for a mentor? Do think that having a mentor for your teen may help them to achieve a goal? Or just provide some support to get through challenges you and your teen may be facing? MENTOR offers a tool called Mentoring Connector. It is a searchable database that can help find some possible mentors in your area. Here is a link Find a Mentor
Remember there are people who are out there willing to help your teen to succeed. Mentors become part of a team to help your teen become the person they want to be. They do not replace parents, guardians or teachers who are there to help out too. Here is a link to their website MENTOR This link also appears on the Resource page which will be found on the Mentoring A Dream website which will go live January 1st. If you are looking for a mentor or want to become one, MENTOR is a great resource to check out.
Got some funds from Santa? Check out The Way Series?
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!
