Family Relations: Mentoring

Imelda Diouf is a South African educator and Katarzyna Lewucha is a Polish social worker. The 2024 series continues to unpack the theme of family relations, using multicultural and multidisciplinary contexts.

Humans are baffling. Unlike many other mammals who are alert and mobile within hours or days of being birthed, human babies are incredibly vulnerable. YouTubes and tik-toks are awash with foals and calves who walk within hours of birthing.

A child is born into a family. Though circumstances of birth differ according to religion, culture and circumstance, every child has assistance when entering the world and will be assisted through those early years into adulthood when the ability to care for self is possible.

Without the early nurturing and care, a child would certainly die.

Proverbs 22:6 guides this nurturing process with ‘Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it”.

The message is to raise children in the proper manner because what they learn will guide them into their adult years. Raising and nurturing a child should not only include physical wellbeing, but should also include the shaping of emotions and mentoring on matters of the soul. The body and soul are united.

Of course the proper way might differ across cultures and religions, yet there are standard values that are universally acceptable. Love, joy, peace, justice, beauty, respect, are but a few of the values to which people generally aspire. These qualities are all part of the care and nurturing basket of goods.

Saint John Bosco, founder of the Salesians and a mentor of at-risk and troubled boys, based his philosophy of reason, religion and loving-kindness. These three pillars comprised the Preventative System that would guide youth into a mature and secure adulthood. Today the Salesians still believe that mentors are specialised experts who “fit into the pattern of the times and are capable of giving God’s tone to their century”.

In bygone days, and when the family lived in the same neighbourhood, elders were important members to take on this role of the ‘teachers of values’, but for contemporary families who are separated by geographical space this role is often fulfilled in other ways and by other means.

Professional coaches and mentors have become the modern day elders –  these are people who share their knowledge, skills and experience, to help others to develop and grow. However the tradition of coaching within family structures needs to be maintained. Who are the family coaches and mentors? In families, the connections are complex; different members connect with each other in different ways. It is all about finding the positive connections.

Good mentors are educators who are capable of identifying needs and obstacles that are present within societies and applying appropriate responses. John Bosco believed that without confidence and love, there can be no true education. Positive changes are not possible without making the child or a young person feel loved and accepted. It is love and acceptance that opens a path to trust which in turn delivers positive desires to change.

There is no age requirement or academic qualification for a mentor position. Key traits must certainly be to create time to “be” with the other person, in the same geographic space, or online through social media or via regular phone calls and letters. Meaningful communication, rather than the rushed hello-bye-bye experience that so often replaces human contact.

Knowledge, skills and experience is not the preserve of older people; indeed young adults, even teens are able to mentor elders through unfamiliar technologies and experiences e.g. banking apps, reading and phone devices.

A child is born into a family, but how does that person die? Still within the embrace of a family?

The celebration of Easter is an intense experience; a full 360 degrees of emotion and reminder of judgement, taking sides, pain and despair, loss, prayer, help, death, hope and rising up. A highly pressurised time that tests relationships and the meaning of life and death.

Family units should be nurtured so that even at the time of passing, the family still plays an important role in assisting a person to exit from the physical world. So much happens between birth and death. The process of mentorship provides a positive space to just be and learn and grow. Easter is a good time to consider the life journey, from birth to death.