How a mentor can leave a positive impact on your child

It wasn’t too long into my teaching career when I witnessed the impact parents had on their children. Whether it be positive or negative, a child’s best and worst traits often come from their parents’ actions. From birth, everything a child sees, hears and does, moulds that child. Therefore parents, or in some cases, guardians, mould that child. But what can you do if a child already has “negative moulding?” How can you get the “moulding” right from the start? Here is how a mentor can leave a positive impact on your child.

Please keep in mind that the human brain is so complex that there are no ‘one-way suits all.’ This information is merely to help you broaden your understanding of role modelling and mentoring, and how the positive and negative actions of an adult, shapes a child’s mentality.

Early into my teaching career, I started a small after-hours tutoring business called Train My Brain, where I would use my sensory learning expertise to help teach children how to learn. As the business grew, I noticed a common trend with the attitude of each child. The children that had a positive mindset to learning often had parents that were encouraging and offering positive support. The children with the negative mindset, were children that had at least one parent with a negative attitude. Parents that were emphasising or focusing on the negative, acted aggressively, or even chose not to support their child.

The Positive Role Model

It is vital to understand that children who need extra support in their learning often have underlying self-esteem issues about their learning struggles. Therefore, being an adult that understands and supports your child throughout their education helps build a stronger resilience for that child and their struggles. By having that positive role model, a child can learn from them and develop their character. For example, children that show respect to others often have adults in their life that show them how to be respectful, and how to progress after failures. Did you notice how I used the word ‘show’, instead of ‘teach?’ This is a crucial concept for all adults to understand.

Leading by Example

If my child were to swear, I would not be impressed! How should I react? It could go a couple of ways. I could tell them off, or punish them, or ignore them? How you react has a minor effect. How you act is where the larger effect comes into play.

I could be that parent that tells my children not to swear, and then swear in front of them around other adults, or even swear at my children. Or I could be that parent that will never swear in front of my children. Both types of parenting have vastly different outcomes. For example, by swearing in front or at my children, I teach my children that it is OK to swear. By swearing and then punishing my children for swearing, I am lowering my punishment’s value, as per my role modelling. However, if I were that parent that does not swear in front of my children, and then punish the children for swearing, my punishment will have a higher value, thus a higher impact. This is because I lead by example and ‘show’ my children how I want them to act.

Being A Mentor and Showing the Child How to Act

As part of my Train My Brain business, I helped a 12 year old boy with his learning. Some sessions were good, others, not so good. His attitude to education was poor, his respect for others was minimal, and his frustration when he could not learn was high. So high that once he became frustrated, he would get angry and switch-off. The session quickly turned from learning, to the regulation of his emotions.

I gathered ‘deeper’ information about his past from his upset mother to try and get a better understanding of the reasons behind his behaviours.

This boy had been raised by his single mother his whole life. She is a kind and caring mother who tries her best to help him progress positively in life. Unfortunately, he had learnt certain negative behaviours from his father. His father chose to be distant from his son and spend minimal time with him. His father would often get frustrated and angry at his son over minor incidents and go for long periods without contacting him. The conversation ran more profoundly than what I have written here; however, have you noticed any links between father and son’s behaviours and attitudes?

Although the amount of time his father spent in his life was minimal, his father’s actions had large effects on shaping how he acted.

As I had a good connection with this boy, his mother and I thought we would try my services as a mentor… To great effect!

Mentoring

We would go out in public and spend time together. We had chilled activities where we would fly a drone, or kick a ball, and chat. At times, we would go out to events of interest. I even took him to meet a manager in a field of interest to him. Doing each of these activities had positive effects on his future behaviour.

By just spending time together and chatting, he was able to open up to me about specific issues and ask me for advice on how to deal with them. By going out in public together, he saw how I act and respect other people (friends & strangers). And by meeting with a manager within his field of interest, he was able to create a possible future for himself, and develop goals to get there.

I was his life mentor, someone he looked up to as a role model, and someone who helped him re-shape his behaviours. With my mentorship, I helped fill in the gaps, and edit certain negative behaviours learned from his father.

What Happened Next?

In not too long, his behaviour at school improved. His respect for other students and teachers improved, and his schooling became better. Was he perfect? NO! Did he still show negative traits he learnt from his father? Yes! But his outbursts were not as bad, and less frequent. We need to remember that the human mind is complex, and everything it sees, hears and does, starting from birth, help shape it. We must also keep in mind that I was not his father, nor was I with him for considerable periods like a parent generally is. I wish I did have more time with him; perhaps I could help him even further, however in doing the best I could with the time I had, he had shown considerable improvements.

As an adult, take note of all your actions in front of children. Those actions are what your children are learning. Whether they show that learnt behaviour from young or old, keep in mind that it is there, incubating within their mind.

Links to my Train My Brain site and mentorship are embedded within this sentence. You are welcome to have a look and gather some ideas for yourself. And as always, you are welcome to contact me via social media or email for any questions you may have.