Running again - and more than before
A lot of positives from the first meeting with after my vaca. My mentee was talking more and seemed happy to be back to the running. He also said that he has started maintaining a journal to manage his homework as I had suggested. I plan to use his journal to make sure that he is making a real attempt to get better at school. He also asked to run twice a week as opposed to the once a week earlier. So we're going to be at the Y on Monday and Thursday. Now all we gotta do is complete the requirements for the first phase and get some volunteering activities in.
On another happy note my old mentee seems to have really gotten better. Hes got a part time job and is apping to colleges. Hopefully he will make it. That will definitely make my day

Back from my long hiatus
Well that was a long vacation indeed, back from India and beginning to pick up where we left off. However I would be foolish to assume that our relationship will have stayed the same. For sure my mentee will have gotten used to my absence and probably has given up all the progress we made. A lot of my fellow mentors have told me that a vacation (either their own or their mentees) tend to really affect the relationship. I think I tried my best to make sure that my mentee would continue to do the good things that we had talked about - studying regularly and also making notes of what homework needed to have been done. Im not hoping for much, but when I called a couple of days ago he said that he had been recording his homework. So lets see - I see him Monday and so will know soon enough

2 steps forward and a step backward - FRUSTRATION
Just when I was beginning to get lazy and truant with my posts, just saw that Bolder sent out the link in their newsletter - so I now have all the more reason to post
Anyways one of the reasons that I was holding back from posting was I wasnt sure of how to describe the frustration I go through sometimes in the mentoring relationship. All my previous posts have been fairly upbeat and rosy and I didnt want this one to turn people away from mentoring. But every rose has its thorns, and the mentoring is no different. Both in this mentoring relationship, and the previous one there have been times when Ive asked myself; is this really worth it? am i getting through to my mentee ? ... is this working ? do I really need to give up 2 evenings a week for no reward ???
Well Ive faced a bunch of things that really made me question my progress- just a sample
Your mentee makes the same mistakes again - a repeat offense is the worst - but little things like not completing homework he/she promised you he would get done
Your mentee doesnt seem to be improving at all - all the stuff you seem to be doing doesnt seem eo make a difference
And the toughest one according to me is when your mentee doesnt seem to want to try to improve - and thats what Im facing in my current relationship. While my mentee seems to like my presence, I dont feel that he is trying hard enough to succeed at his goals. And I dont know why he feels that way. So this last week has been spent trying to figure out what the root issues behind his not trying are - and we are not there yet

So heres my two cents on how to see the light at the end of the tunnel
- tackle every issue you see. It is better to find out whats really wrong than to try to slide an issue under the carpet. A prime example is what Im facing with why my mentee wont try to get better - I need to find out why (hopefully I will)
- be genuine - put yourself out there - dont be afraid to make mistakes. As a volunteer mentor you (and I) are no gurus, but if you keep doing the things you know are right you will make an impact
as jedi master yoda would say "do or do not, there is no try" keep doing what you do it will make a difference, it sure is a lot better than to say you tried and give up. Because I can guarantee you, when you see your mentee at the end of the program - there is no better satisfaction (Trust me I know - when I see my previous mentee today, I see a youth who really managed to fix his life with the help of Bolder Options)

A time to give thanks
Its Thanksgiving today and its been about a month since ive been matched with my mentee and what do I have to give thanks for
- Im thankful to my mentee for allowing me to strike up a relationship
- Im thankful to Bolder Options for doing a good job with matching us up
- Im thankful to the YMCA for allowing us to stay out of the "not so" biting cold
- Im thankful to 3M for tickets to the Vikes Monday Night game
- Im thankful to my mentees dad for the support he offers
- Im thankful to my mentee for looking at this relationship as a way to grow
Well if you look at all my posts up till now it would seem that mentoring is really easy, and it is, but there are always times when you ask yourself - why did I get myself into this. And there have been times in the last month when I have had my misgivings. We will leave the questions and how I dealt with them for my next post and focus on the reasons that mentorship is fun.
- It gives you a reason to be a role model for someone (and a reason to be better than yourself)
- A kids smile is worth a lot more than anything I know
- You actually are making a difference
So until my next post (the one with mentoring misgivings - and how to deal with them) - Happy Thanksgiving
PS: Im watching the game and I always wonder where they get the mug shots for the players. Joey Harringtons pic looks like he badly needs a barber

Goal Setting
One of the things that the Bolder Options program does that really seems to make a huge difference to these kids lives is the setting of three goals that we then strive towards. My two mentees both seem to have the drive to achieve - but have never had the opportunity to work towards something with a plan. In fact my previous mentee has said more than once that Bolder Options helped him to prioritize his activities so as to tackle the things that would make the most difference to his life.
Coming back to my new mentee - we came up with two of his goals in this week
Bolder suggests that we focus each of the goals on different areas in the youths life namely academic physical and personal
Academic: these are normally easy to come up with since it normally involves evaluting which subjects your mentee needs help with. My mentee really needs to work on his math - so we have a pretty stiff goal of getting from a No credit to a B. Its going to be tough but I believe the weekly work that we do at the library will pretty much guarantee that
Physical: these always end up being something to do with 5K times. This time around I have challenged my mentee to run for 4.5 miles in 30 mins. I think he currently is at 3 and six-tenths so this one is going to be a tough one to get to
Personal: these are the most difficult ones to figure out. We havnt gotten down to figuring this one out yet .. so I guess this gets a post on its own
The Carrot
Something that Bolder doesnt talk about is little rewards or incentives. I find that they really work well. It normally means finding out what your mentee really wants. My mentee is really interested in Japanese stuff - and the only japanese stuff I really like is Sushi. Apparently he would like to try it too - so thats our reward if we get to a B in math ....so watch for an interesting post on sushi sometime in Jan :)

Weak Vikings and a Strong Run
We were lucky enough to get tickets to the Vikes-Pats game that had been donated to Bolder Options by 3M. We never get a chance to say thank you to these organizations that continuously support what we do - so heres a big shout out to 3M - THANK YOU.
The less said about the game the better - though the suite we were in was real cool - I think my mentee really enjoyed it. His only request was to find a place where he could buy horns - a request that was quickly silenced about 4 mins into the 1st quarter
Then back to our regular mentoring routine - I make it sound regimented but Ive noticed that it works when you have a fixed schedule. We have decided to meet twice a week - Mondays at the library to do homework and Thursday to run. Yesterday was our first running day. Went pretty well - hit the YMCA only to find that the running track was under repair so ended up running 30 mins on the treadmill. My mentees pretty good. Stayed with me for about 15 mins then had to slow down but finished the 30 mins. I love it when pride keeps them going. I guess thats what drives my mentee - so I think I will use his pride to get him to be better at whatever he does
Well next we tackle his schoolwork - lets see how that goes

Thoughts from week 1...
Guess one of the reasons I have this blog going is to kinda document what seems to work and what doesnt. Now this isnt a "how-to" on mentoring, more of a bunch of things that seem to hit home.
So here goes
Listen at your first meeting
Silence helps.. I talked a bit and then just waited, my mentee then opened up. Nothing specific just general things that he was willing to talk about. In most cases talking about school grades is easy, because he/she already know that you know about their grades. It also helped me find out what he liked... which leads me to
Find out what they like (and dislike)
My kid seems to be the kind that likes reading (interestingly he liked to read about religion and history) so Ive got some library sessions in mind. Finding out dislikes may be a bit tougher but I will get there soon
Allow them to interact and watch
We went to the office to pick up his shoes and was able to see what he was comfortable with. Some kids are introverts, and should be encouraged; mine really isnt and so it was nice to see him communicate with the folks at Bolder
Set your schedule up
Kids find it easier when they have a set schedule. Im in a process of setting up 2 days a week that we will meet. Once we have that schedule going I guess he wont have excuses to say that he didnt remember that I was going to be over.
Well thats all I have for week one ... lets see what week two brings