I like Pat’s takeaway tip because it captures, in my mind, what mentoring is all about.
A mentor, for instance, does not necessarily just teach an individual about the importance of reaching a goal or developing a skill or planning for a future event. He or she may not even clearly communicate how that person can achieve it. Just living through (and surviving) an adjustment in one’s circumstances can be enough.
Now that I can look back 60 years, I realize my dad lived through a time in our lives when everything around him was destabilized in rural Wisconsin – high schools were consolidating, local creameries were merging, farmers were cultivating more acres through automation, local retail outlets for farm supplies became shops with regional and national identities etc.
I remember the one day that this all became clear to me – that living through this quite-significant transition in rural America during the 1960s was, at times, stressful. I came home from college for the weekend and discovered that our nearby town of 200 people and the farmers in the area had decided to build two new church buildings (both Lutheran but of different synods).
As a school board member, Dad had worked successfully to consolidate two local high schools, but, as a church council member, he had failed to convince two congregations to work together and build just one sanctuary.
It was the first time I saw him cry. It was in church that Sunday morning.
What I didn’t realize then but know now is that he was setting an example I needed because, it turned out, I struggled with consolidation, too, during my lifetime. For nearly 30 years after the two new church buildings went up in town, I worked in the Wisconsin dairy business where I developed the communication strategy for helping communities adjust to local cheese plants (key employers in some cases) going out of business due to automation.
The words “we can do better together” were never heard in our household, but it was an assumption that was always there.
Sometimes “non-communicative” dads can be effective mentors. “Silence” from a parent doesn’t necessarily need to be a vulnerability we carry into elderhood. Remember actions instead of words.
* When have you seen a parent’s mentoring make a difference in a child’s accomplishment?
I like Pat’s takeaway tip because it captures, in my mind, what mentoring is all about.
A mentor, for instance, does not necessarily just teach an individual about the importance of reaching a goal or developing a skill or planning for a future event. He or she may not even clearly communicate how that person can achieve it. Just living through (and surviving) an adjustment in one’s circumstances can be enough.
Now that I can look back 60 years, I realize my dad lived through a time in our lives when everything around him was destabilized in rural Wisconsin – high schools were consolidating, local creameries were merging, farmers were cultivating more acres through automation, local retail outlets for farm supplies became shops with regional and national identities etc.
I remember the one day that this all became clear to me – that living through this quite-significant transition in rural America during the 1960s was, at times, stressful. I came home from college for the weekend and discovered that our nearby town of 200 people and the farmers in the area had decided to build two new church buildings (both Lutheran but of different synods).
As a school board member, Dad had worked successfully to consolidate two local high schools, but, as a church council member, he had failed to convince two congregations to work together and build just one sanctuary.
It was the first time I saw him cry. It was in church that Sunday morning.
What I didn’t realize then but know now is that he was setting an example I needed because, it turned out, I struggled with consolidation, too, during my lifetime. For nearly 30 years after the two new church buildings went up in town, I worked in the Wisconsin dairy business where I developed the communication strategy for helping communities adjust to local cheese plants (key employers in some cases) going out of business due to automation.
The words “we can do better together” were never heard in our household, but it was an assumption that was always there.
Sometimes “non-communicative” dads can be effective mentors. “Silence” from a parent doesn’t necessarily need to be a vulnerability we carry into elderhood. Remember actions instead of words.
* When have you seen a parent’s mentoring make a difference in a child’s accomplishment?