Growing and developing is hard work! Mentoring kids along the way helps them learn about desired expectations and behaviors so they can reach their full potential.
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Growing and developing is hard work! Mentoring kids along the way helps them learn about desired expectations and behaviors so they can reach their full potential.
Send us an email: parenting@iastate.edu.
Find us on Facebook: @scienceofparent.
This institution is an equal opportunity provider. For the full non-discrimination statement or accommodation inquiries, go to www.extension.iastate.edu/diversity/ext
Hey, welcome to The Science of Parenting podcast where we connect you with research based information that fits your family. We'll talk about the realities of being a parent, and how research can help guide our parenting decisions. I'm Mackenzie Johnson, parent of two littles with their own quirks. And I'm a parenting educator.
Lori Korthals:And I'm Lori Korthals. And I'm a parent of three in three different life stages. One is launched, one is in college, and one is in high school. And today we're going to continue our discussion, looking at this lifelong parenting model that we have as this acronym or I guess it's just letters, isn't it? RPM3. And today we're gonna dive into the second M, which is mentoring. It sounds kind of formal, doesn't it?
Mackenzie Johnson:Yeah. Okay. You say? Well, I guess it's not an acronym. I called it an acronym on every episode, really an acronym? We're not a grammar podcast. I'm not absolutely certain on that. But yes, today, we're talking about mentoring. But just like we do in every episode, we want to pause for just a moment. And yes, respond, prevent, monitor, mentor, and model are the five parts of this model. And they're basic tasks that we do, basically, every day with our kids that research shows can help us raise great humans. But we just want to pause and say, the idea is not that we do this right, every moment of every day all the time. And like, no, parenting requires a life long perspective. So as we think about how we have mentored our kids over their lifetime, and we'll dive into a little bit more about what that means, but we just wanna remind you, we're not talking about, quote, unquote, getting it right all the time. We're talking about from birth to death, we got all this time to engage with our kids. Will you tell us what mentoring means, Lori, because as I said, it sounds very formal.
Lori Korthals:It does - very, very formal, very formal, heavy. And it implies I have a lot of responsibility, which sometimes scares me.
Mackenzie Johnson:I'll say so, like in between wiping bottoms and dirty hands in your house. Guaranteed, feels very glamorous, but also you are mentoring, you are very formally.
Lori Korthals:Very formally. So the definition we're going to use is that a mentor is someone who provides guidance, friendship, and respect to a child. We mentor our kids by supporting and encouraging their desired behaviors, the behaviors we desire of them. And really, it's about helping kids reach their full potential, like you said, growing little humans, right? Growing big humans, little humans into big humans. There we go. And this really includes the idea that there are going to be mistakes and tears, and there's going to be successes and smiles. And in parenting, it is kind of informal mentoring, but we're teaching our kids how to become successful adults. And I love the way that our content editor, Barb Dunn Swanson, describes mentoring. She said, you know, team, it's really about coming alongside our children as they make a path towards independence. Can you just see us walking along this happy little path?
Mackenzie Johnson:Yes, I have written in my notes, alongside. Oh, I love that word for mentoring. Yeah. And as you guys might remember if you've been listening to our other episodes this season, that a lot of this research is based from a booklet that was put out by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Health and Human Development. And it gives some really nice examples for mentoring. And because we talked about like, sounds like a formal word, but really, it's stuff we're doing all the time. So just a few examples they give of how parents mentor their kids is, we help our kids develop their own strengths, we share in their interests, we offer advice and support, we give praise and encouragement, we listen to the concerns they have and you know, even just being a person our kids can lean on when things are hard. Those are all ways that we're all mentoring. And I kind of like to use this word of like guiding and teaching. You know, I feel like the respond, prevent, monitor, mentor and model, of all the five, this is the one where we're really about teaching and guiding our kids I feel like. Really a lot more about their skills.
Lori Korthals:It makes me kind of think if I had a, you know my word pictures - I see pictures in my head all the time, right? So I as you were talking I could see myself, literally as my daughters grew and the different ages and stages and that they were at, is saying things like I'll start your zipper, you finish it. Let me help you get your arm in, and then you pull it on if I was talking about a shirt. Or okay, I'm going to start the car and you're going to put it in drive. Those are the pictures that came to mind as you were reading the words.
Mackenzie Johnson:Yes. And okay I also feel like that's very temperamenty of you. You and your goodness of fit. You've mentioned before you have some slow to warm up kids so like, oh, I'll help you get started. I hear a little bit of your temperament knowledge there.
Lori Korthals:It is. It is. Mentoring is like learning that goodness of fit, though, right? Yeah, we're all different. Our children are all different. So mentoring is going to be different for each child.
Mackenzie Johnson:Totally. And, like we've talked about, like, that's why we have a pluralistic approach is what we call out at The Science of Parenting. There's more than one way to raise great kids. The way I often think about this mentoring, I think about instead of saying like, yeah, we're raising our kids. We're raising adults, you know, which is a lot. Even that definition mentioned about successful adults or whatever. And so we're raising adults. And so as I think about mentoring, like, what skills or characteristics or all those things? Hopefully, we're raising kind humans is another one. But yeah, so like we're raising adults. We are. What do we want them to have in their mentoring? And honestly, that kind of leads us right into why this idea of mentoring is important. Right? So if we think about, again, lifelong, they're becoming adults that are mentoring as parents matters. We actually have some research here from a textbook called Handbook of Parenting, which, literally, there's a book called The Handbook of Parenting. All right, lots of good ideas in there on parenting. But from that particular textbook, it tells us that research is showing and has shown for a long time, that the way that parents express their approval or disapproval to their kids helps teach the kids about desired behaviors. So for example, when you see your child do something kind or helpful, and you say, like, I really liked the way that you did blank, right, that shows approval. Versus when you see a behavior we don't want love so much we're like, oh, you know, I really think that could hurt someone's feelings, or you know, you help share the kind of negative impact, you're offering your approval or disapproval. And ultimately, over time that builds up to show our kids what kind of behaviors we want and don't want. So absolutely. This mentoring is a huge part of our parenting over time.
Lori Korthals:Yeah huge, big, huge part. And, you know, I think it kind of lends us to the idea that we do need to think about then, if it's a big part, how we express both our approval and our disapproval. So you know, if we are regularly too harsh with disapproval, we might impact our children's self worth, while at the same time, if we never express disapproval, then, you know, will our children even learn what isn't appropriate, and what's appropriate. They might not learn how to follow basic rules, if we are on the opposite of stream of never showing disapproval. You know, we don't want to squash their ideas and thoughts and skills, but at the same time, you're guiding them and, you know, giving them parameters for things.
Mackenzie Johnson:Yes. And that word guide, I'm getting a word picture. Like, I have a word picture. You know, as we're talking through this and think about this word of guide, and you know, like the saying, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make a drink? Because it's like, okay, yeah, sure, tell me that it needs to be balanced and that's what I need. But like, how do I find that balance. I'm thinking of literally like we're guiding, probably shouldn't refer to my children as farm animals, but a horse you know, guiding a horse down a path. We're guiding them. Ultimately the horse is in charge of its own body, but we can help create a path. We can help them learn how to get through things, and hills and valleys and all those things. But into adulthood, they were guided in this experience, and they were mentored. I feel like some of our extension specialists who maybe specialized in livestock or equestrian things. I feel like maybe we'll have them on the podcast to expand this.
Lori Korthals:That's a great idea. Sure, of course. I know we've been trying to figure out how to collaborate and engage with them, right?
Mackenzie Johnson:But yeah, so all that to say the idea of guiding and that it's important for our kids. And, again, the approval and disapproval part of it. What are some things with your kids that you feel like you're really trying to show them you approve of right now? Like, what are some of those? I mean, what do you want them to do? What do you hope?
Lori Korthals:Yeah, right, exactly. I think that the fact that, you know, one's launched, one's in college, and one's in high school is that idea of watching them a) make good choices, b) make good choices on their own, you know, without needing me to tell them what the good choice is, c) and the third one is that they are also helping others make good choices, or, you know, yeah, empowering others. And so, I think that that mentoring piece for me, since my children are older is seeing them kind of live out what I've had, as far as hopes and dreams, for them. But also, then to watch them do that for others. And I have kind of a silly example. My teenager and her friend group, they were having some irritation with each other and, and she was sharing, you know, the irritation that they were having with each other. And not everyone in the group was irritated. And she said, you know, so what I told so and so was I'm pretty sure we are irritating too. And, you know, we just have to give each other some grace and forgiveness and recognize that we're all irritating. And I add that here, because that's something that I've mentored to children is yes, you know, when you were four years old, when you were six years old, you did some irritating things that I didn't like, you know. Or yes, guess what, I'm going to do some things that you don't like, and now to hear her repeat that.
Mackenzie Johnson:She's passing on the wisdom.
Lori Korthals:Passing on the wisdom, the motherly the wisdom.
Mackenzie Johnson:But I think there's also some skills, you know, in terms of developing her courage to do that, right? To empower other people and to say those things. Those are great skills. With my littles. Yeah. With my little kids, I feel like we're spending a lot of time doing the guiding and the teaching on emotion stuff. So my youngest is in a phase that when he's frustrated, he wants to throw stuff or knock stuff down. And it's like, oh, that like, oh, you knocked that down and your sisters working on it, right? Or, oh, we like we need to use nice touches to the dog. And so showing that disapproval of the behaviors you don't like, but also making sure that that is balanced with the things like, oh, you put that away so nice. Thanks for helping clean up. And yeah, being helpful, being kind are things that are important and then that emotion one. You shared kind of like a value based one, you know, but I think the one that comes to mind for me is we talk a lot about like that different can be good, like if people are different from us. And so when I, you know, my older child in particular, like affirming that idea of like, well, yeah, they do this different from me, but that can be good. And it's like, I love that you said that. You're right, them thinking of it different than you means you guys have more ideas together. So that's another one that I'm really trying to approve of is this idea of like, when people are different from me, I can learn from them and all that kind of stuff. But it really all comes down to each family, right? And like what we think is important for our kids might not be what someone else thinks. I'm like, good, different is good,
Lori Korthals:It is good. Well, we kind of covered you know, the older kids and the smaller kids. But, you know, let's tie into that a little bit deeper through thinking about, you know, what are children learning at particular stages? And, you know, how does this mentoring happen at different stages?
Mackenzie Johnson:Yes, it is absolutely the case that what I'm doing with my toddler looks a little different than what you're doing with your teenager.
Lori Korthals:So I know all the brain research says that teen brains are often just really big toddler brains.
Mackenzie Johnson:But either way, but either way. So as we think about mentoring with our infants and toddlers, it's like, okay, what am I doing here? And actually a lot more than you probably think, right? We know in this kind of stage, there's a ton of physical development, right? The little babies learn to clap and then they learn to crawl and then there's walking and then there's climbing and inevitably there's throwing. But you know, there's all this physical development as well as kind of this beginning of what's appropriate behavior, right? Even our little crawling, those first mobile babies when they go to get into something they're not supposed to, we start to teach them what's safe or not safe. So examples of what we might do and include things like we help teach our kids how to walk, or how to crawl or work towards that next milestone, we also mentor them and guide them on what's appropriate behavior. About when those toddlers especially have the biggest feelings, and they need help with the skills to deal with those biggest feelings. So big, and so you know, that emotion of like, oh, you're mad, you're stomping your feet, right? And even something we might not think of like reading books to our kids, when at any age, but, you know, reading books is a form of teaching and mentoring.
Lori Korthals:It absolutely is. Well, okay, so as they continue to grow into preschoolers, so you have a preschool age daughter, and so, you know, as I say these things, I'm sure you can picture them, but teaching appropriate behavior with friends at preschool or in social environments that you may not be in. How do we teach them to get into those friend groups and play appropriately? Well, that comes from mentoring at home, showing them literally how to get ready for the school day, you know, what are the steps that we take? I love the example that you gave in a previous podcast of your your daily cards. And yeah, that is mentoring and teaching. What are the steps we take to get ready so that we can get out the door
by 8:13? You know, trying to provide toys and activities that they're interested in, and that they can learn to play with them in an appropriate way, but also in a way that they can learn and engage from them. Whether we look at, you know, toys and activities that create small motor or those small, physical activities, whether it's drawing or coloring or cutting. Or the big activities which might be running and jumping and climbing. And really, I think it's important to remember that another huge piece of mentoring is helping them and letting them and teaching them how to make choices at that age, I think I know your daughter loves to make choices.
Mackenzie Johnson:Yes. That's all I'm gonna say about that.
Lori Korthals:School agers, yes.
Mackenzie Johnson:And so as preschoolers make more of their personal decisions about their day, school agers have kind of, okay, I know what kinds of things I get to choose. And now they're going to start working on mastery. So, okay, I've started to figure it out and now I want to get better at it. And so this is the age where we see a lot more after school activities, and things like that. And so things we do as a parent that help mentor them can be things like celebrating progress they've made in school, you know, maybe they've been working really hard at math facts. Math facts was a thing when I was in school. I hope that's still a thing. Yep, so celebrating progress they make and the things that they're working on and encouraging them to keep trying, right, as we learn to get better at things, sometimes it's frustrating. And so we can mentor and teach our kids to keep trying when it's hard. Some simple stuff, even just like engaging in the stuff they like. If they like to play baseball or softball, playing catch in the backyard. That's a form of mentoring. And then I think another big one that starts to come into play, we see a few more of these beginning life skills in terms of learning to manage their time. So with school agers, they've got a little more freedom, right? But if they are involved in some commitments, they might be thinking about, okay, so you have homework and you have practice and you have school, and, and we can't stay up all night, like we've got a time to get to bed. And so learning some of those things are also things we help teach along the way.
Lori Korthals:We do. And in school age, you the parent, you're still in charge of most of the final decisions there. Right. And as you grow to the preteen and teen years and the young adults, then that's when you see those things just become tenfold. And so they're learning a lot of social adulting types of tasks, and they are more friends and more commitments and more decisions and more prioritizing. And so just when we think we are needing to let them go and do all those things, we have to also recognize that they need us to come alongside them and mentor them to make good decisions and to think about their priorities. What am I going to have to miss because I have this part time job? What social events am I going to miss because I have this practice? And then those ideas of life skills. I'm gonna have to learn how to clean the toilets. I'm gonna learn how to keep the whites away from the darks in the laundry. Handling money, and even, you know, like vehicle care. Don't forget to change the oil. Your car needs gas. It's all mentoring, right? So I mean, if you think about all the examples we gave, and the stages, I think I see a big theme that as parents, the largest role we play, or a very large role we play, is setting the stage. Word picture, we set the stage with all of these things and activities and opportunities and decisions so that their children can learn to have skills and abilities so they can live on their own. I mean, I'm pretty sure that I do remember vividly looking at my very first child, those first moments thinking, I will never, ever want you to leave home and live on your own. And I'm so proud that she is a cool human. But I'm glad that she is living on her own and so it's the stage that we set. It's a life stage of, you know, monitoring and mentoring, to provide that guidance and encouragement necessary for growing independence. And it's like this two for one, they all go hand in hand. Right?
Mackenzie Johnson:Absolutely. When we're monitoring, we're also kind of preventing and sometimes when responding, we're also mentoring and teaching, right, or modeling the behavior, which we're going to talk about next week. I won't get into that. But we do have some strategies, a few simple tips and tricks. You know, we talked about this balance, like, how do I get this balance on mentoring. And so a few tips that we have for you. One is to be honest about your own strengths and weaknesses. Saying things like, sometimes it's hard for me to be patient when things are. Like for me, I might say when things are really loud, I feel overwhelmed and I'm not ready to talk. And I've said before, even like in workshops or maybe even in episodes that we've done, my husband is much more patient than I am. And so sometimes I've got to say to my kids, I'm really mad and now's not a good time for me to talk. I need to take a break.
Lori Korthals:Oh my gosh, like you just gave so many parents permission to just be honest about how they really feel. Podcast ended, episode over. Yeah, that was it. Be honest about how you feel. It is absolutely 100% okay, as a parent to say, I really don't like this right now. And I need to go take a break in my room. Or, you know, I'm really sad right now. Our children, they learn emotions from us.
Mackenzie Johnson:And even I was really frustrated. I made a stupid error yesterday that basically made me waste a bunch of time, deleted something I didn't mean to. And I was not in a great mood when I came home. You know, I had my kids and my husband and I was trying to get stuff done. And my daughter came into me to try to talk to me about something when I was trying to like prepare supper. And I was like, I want to hear about this after supper when I'm ready to listen. And I do want to encourage what you're gonna share with me, I want you to share with me but I can't take it in right now. So being honest with our kids about it. Because as they grow into adults, you know, what happens if they've never seen you have a hard time. If they thought you were great at everything, right? They might think that they're some kind of failure because they're not perfect. Yes. So be honest about that. Another two that actually tie really close to that come to this idea of balance of respecting our kids' thoughts and opinions, even when they're different than ours. And try not to judge them. I like to share the example, I say a lot of, I guess we disagree right now. My daughter is convinced that somewhere in town is called this place and I'm like, that's not its name. I can read. I know that's not what it says on the sign. But instead of us arguing about it right now, I've come to this place where that's what you think that's called. I disagree. I guess we disagree about that. But just finding ways to honor that like yes, you are your own person. You're entitled to your own opinion and thoughts and I might disagree about it, but I don't want to judge you for it, right? I might guide your decisions and some of those things, and another one that ties close to that is helping encourage their interests and their strengths without forcing it. Right? Their choice, you know, the whole lead a horse to water thing I said earlier. You know, we may encourage them. Maybe you loved, you know, a lot of sports as a kid, right? Like, my husband and I both played basketball. We played baseball and softball. I played tennis. He played soccer. We did all this stuff and so we would love if our kids were engaged in that. That would be fun for us. We're gonna encourage it a little. But ultimately, they might decide that's not for them. And so honoring that, that's tough. But right along with that, the fourth tip is to introduce your kids to things you do like, right. So we're gonna introduce them to those things that we love, or did love as kids, and maybe they'll love it, and maybe they won't. But sharing that with them is a way that we mentor and teach. Exactly. Okay. And then this last one, which I did not make up, is the perfect segue into next week's episode on modeling. So you know, modeling will be all about our own behavior.
Lori Korthals:And I'm holding all of my examples till next
Mackenzie Johnson:Yeah, I know, right? But the fifth tip is to week. actually consider the way that you communicate with your co-parent. Thinking about our own behavior and the way that our behavior teaches our kids. And so the way we talk to our co-parent, that we speak respectfully, whether you're married, dating, divorced, separated, living apart, but that we're speaking with respect, because it's teaching our kids about what to expect in relationships, and the way they can expect people to treat them. So that's another really important part. So our few strategies kind of focused on balance, on being honest abou our strengths and weaknesses respecting our kids' thoughts a d opinions even if we di agree, supporting their in erests and strengths without fo cing it, and introducing t ings that we love and can s are with them, all while doing t at with speaking with respect to their co-parent so that they ca also learn and model from th t.
Lori Korthals:Exactly. So there we go. I guess that means it's time to bring in our producer, Kenzie, and see what she's going to do for us. This is our Stop. Breathe. Talk. segment of the episode where we somehow in creating this podcast agreed that we would take questions off the cuff and Kenzie would toss them to us. So here it is, our Stop. Breathe. Talk. and welcome, Kenzie.
Mackenzie DeJong:I take pleasure in stumping you every time. And so today's question relates to the fact that when we think of mentoring, most of us automatically jumped to the idea of an adult mentoring another adult, often like in a work environment, that sort of thing. So I was wondering if you would go along with this idea that we are going to connect an example of an adult adult mentoring relationship to an adult child mentoring relationship, because sometimes we think to ourselves, wow, that seems really scary. So if you've never thought about mentoring a child, you might think it sounds really scary, but many of us have mentored an adult. So I'm going to give an example. And then I'll let you to also give an example if you can think of one. The thing that I thought of was often as either an informal or formal mentor, if we have someone that comes to work with us, and in extension, we do a lot of community meetings. We often don't just say, here's the date and time, feel free. Often, like when I started, I know Lori went with me to a couple of meetings to start and sat alongside me and was there with me at those meetings. And then after a couple of times, she wasn't there anymore, and I was comfortable being there. With kids, I think that fits in. You know, if there's a class that maybe we walk them up to the class and sit with them for a little while. And then maybe after a couple of times, they're more comfortable, we leave them and we can go grocery shopping. Or like Lori said, when you're zipping the zipper, you zip a little way and they can zip the rest of the way. So that is my connection of an adult adult to an adult child mentoring relationship to help people kind of piece it together. Do you have any examples?
Mackenzie Johnson:I have one that's within the family realm. That actually is both, like this could be adult adult or adult child. I think of siblings. Like things that my older siblings have helped teach me, you know, when things have been tough, but also things that I've had the chance to teach my younger and sometimes older siblings, right? Sometimes it's not always the age that decides who's helping who or guiding who. So that opportunity with siblings, that as we think about it, one of my older siblings read to me every night when I was a kid and she was mentoring me. And I think of how I've helped my younger sister, you know, navigate, okay so sometimes you have to reach out and talk to your boss. Sometimes you need to call them or you might need to check on this particular thing. And so that's I think there's a lot of mentoring that goes on in sibling relationships.
Mackenzie DeJong:I love that.
Lori Korthals:Yeah, I agree. And so I think that in school settings, I know of times that my children have been, maybe they've been in fifth grade and they've been reading buddies to kindergarten or first grade. Or in high school, they have gone into the middle or elementary school, and they're utilizing those students as mentors. Yeah. Because the younger children see the older children as, you know, a person to look up to that's not an adult. And so I think that that shows a mentoring. Neighborhoods, think about the neighborhoods and the children that were older than you and those children that were younger than you. I can just picture a whole group of children in our neighborhood that they all walk to school together. Yeah, you know, all the heights are different. You know, and so I can vividly see them walking. One day when it was really snowy out and the the older children were helping the younger children over the big snowbank that the snowplow had pushed through. So lots of ways and mentoring examples.
Mackenzie Johnson:And alongside where it just keeping on, picturing them helping each other, you know, holding hands and like getting through the snowbanks.
Mackenzie DeJong:Yeah. And I just thought of, this is again a Lori helping me sort of thing, it's the idea of you can do hard things, and that you walk alongside somebody and as a mentor of an adult, basically, you're telling them that same thing, right? You're saying, you've never been in this job before, or you've never been in this spot before. Let me help show you how you can do hard things. And it can be the same idea for kids. I'm sorry, I was answering my own question. But I got excited about it.
Mackenzie Johnson:You made me think of another example. You're not stumped. But I also think a lot of times there's youth mentoring programs. And that's actually what comes to mind with this word, mentor, for me. Funny, you thought of adult adult mentoring and I thought of an adult who's mentoring a kid, you know, who's a non-parent. I know, my family and other families have been involved, and had the opportunity to mentor or to have their kids mentored by someone else. It really is another adult who's kind of coming along and saying, I care about you, I'm invested in you, I want to encourage you and help you grow. And so yeah, mentoring is all of these things. And in parenthood, we're doing it with a lot of teaching, right? Like, it's a lot of life skills. And it's formal because we're their parents. We're with them a lot of the time. You know, and that lifelong perspective makes it kind of unique.
Mackenzie DeJong:And you can do hard things. If you can mentor someone else's child, you can definitely mentor your own child as well.
Mackenzie Johnson:Yes. Thanks, Kenz. She comes in and we kind of remind ourselves of our flagship parenting strategy to stop and take a breath to speak with intention. So we try to do that in the moment, like we always have to do in our parenting in the moment. Exactly, exactly. So we did this episode kind of walk through, you know, understanding what is this thing of mentoring, sounds so formal, but it's the stuff we're doing all the time. It's an important way to help raise our kids. We do it from when they're little to when they're really big, and we just get to help teach them and kind of come alongside them. But next week, like I said, you know, like we teased a little bit. Next week, we're gonna do the final episode of the season. And that's the final M in our acronym or not acronym, I don't know, in the RPM3 parenting model. And so the final one is on modeling. So you have to come back to hear all about that one and how it kind of ties it all together. It does. It does. Let's come back and hear that.
Lori Korthals:Thank you for joining us today on The Science of Parenting podcast. And remember, you can join us weekly on our audio podcast on any of your favorite podcast apps. Yo can watch the show on video eac week. And you can follow us o social media on Facebook as wel as on Twitte@thescienceofparents
Mackenzie Johnson:Yes. And so please do come along with us as we tackle the ups and downs, the ins and outs, and the research and reality all around The Science of Parenting.
Anthony Santiago:The Science of Parenting is hosted by Lori Korthals and Mackenzie Johnson, produced by Mackenzie DeJong, with research and writing by Barbara Dunn Swanson. Send in questions and comments to parenting@iastate.edu and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. This institution is an equal opportunity provider. For the full nondiscrimination statement or accommodation inquiries, go to www.extension.iastate.edu/diversity/ext.