DOES A CHILD HAVE SOMEONE TO LOOK UP TO?

Mentoring Is Part of the Solution

By Ralph Provenza

Having just participated in the happy event of our biggest Bowl For Kids’ Sake, I thought I’d try to explain why Big Brothers Big Sisters is so important for our community.

One of the most reliable predictors of whether a boy or girl will succeed or fail rests on a single question: Does the child have someone to look up to?

This is well known in social work, parenting, and probably by everyone who has ever been mentored. The self-confidence and resilience that children build from a mentoring relationship make it easier for them to become successful, purposeful adults.

Every child can benefit from a mentor; but I propose that mentoring can fill a special need in our community and that adults who volunteer to mentor a girl or boy will also be making dramatic change in the community.

Here’s how it can work.

As our local school administrators can tell you, many local students are “at risk.” They are persistently tardy, absent, and achieving below average grades. Despite the efforts of their teachers and families, these children are not flourishing and their achievement falls far short of their potential.

Mentoring can help change that. Many children who fail to achieve grade level mastery have the potential to do better. And with mentoring, they will do better.

At Big Brothers Big Sisters, we have been working with many of these students for several years now. The schools help us to identify children at risk and prioritize a child’s need for a mentor. Then we match them with adult mentors who meet weekly or for a few hours a month to share friendship.

From our experience, children who receive mentoring through Big Brothers Big Sisters improve their achievement level, increase their self-esteem, and show several other measures of positive growth. With mentoring, children at risk get the extra support and encouragement they need to improve their work.

In short, even for many children at risk, if we can match them with a mentor—perhaps someone like you—they can turn themselves around.

Over time, a profile emerges of the children who receive mentoring through Big Brothers Big Sisters. A large majority comes from a single parent family; almost half have/had at least one parent institutionalized; two-thirds had a parent involved in drugs and/or alcohol; two-thirds have parents who did not finish high school. A surprising number of children we mentor are homeless or in transitional housing.

It’s certainly difficult to be a child in some of these circumstances. You can see why grades or standardized test scores might begin to slip. Kids can be dealing with other problems in their home lives too. Yet they are, for the most part, great kids with much greater untapped potential.

This is where mentoring really makes a difference and enables kids to see beyond the difficulties of their immediate environment. Mentoring helps a child to understand her future is not limited by the current circumstances and that the world offers many options. All that for a few hours a month!

Your experience and willingness to share it can make that change for a child. And you would be surprised how it will change you in positive ways too. Mentors often say the time they connect with their “Littles” helps them think out of the box, relax, enjoy life, and have new experiences.

Volunteer men and women make the program work. Mentors, or “Bigs” as we call them, have great impact when they are matched with young children in grades K to 6.

And there are many ways to get involved. A “Big” can meet a child at school for lunch once a week to play games, read, talk about life, and hang out. Or a “Big” can meet his “Little” in the community to do different activities together.

Many of these activities are available free or significantly discounted to mentors and their Littles through the generosity of local businesses.

When was the last time you went to the top of the Monument and heard a child cheer in excitement as he took in the view? When was the last time you wandered one of our local college campuses, walked down Main Street, or checked out things at Greenberg’s with a great young kid?

There are lots of simple things that make life better for us all. Mentoring is a big one.