My next mentoring experience was quite different. I went from mentoring Laney, who was 7 to mentoring Pam, a 13 year old. To be very honest, I did not want to mentor an older girl, because I thought I felt more comfortable working the younger kids. The Mentor Coordinator at the agency thought Pam and I would make a great match, so I trusted the agency and they set up the match. After I met Pam and spent some time with her, I learned to appreciate the differences between a 7 and 13 year old.
When I was working with Laney, I pretty much made the plans. I would give her options of what she wanted to do, but ultimately I helped facilitate the visit. Planning with Pam was different. She would offer suggestions and ideas of where to go. Early on we decided that one week she'd make the plans and the next week I would make the plans. It was much easier to have conversations with Pam than Laney, which I learned to enjoy. Pam taught me a lot about different subjects such as music, fashion, ROTC, and more. Pam also enjoyed spending time at my house. We made dinner, watched Grey's Anatomy, played games and worked on our scrapbooks. The agency that matched us offered monthly enrichment activities, such as museum visits, bowling, baseball games, and more. As a volunteer, I really appreciated the planned events and we tried to participate every month. Pam and I also volunteered for other events. On Earth Day we helped clean a local park and during the holidays we collected food for needy families.
As I mentioned earlier, a big difference between Laney and Pam was the conversations we had. A lot of the conversations I had with Laney were based around redirecting behaviors for inappropriate boundaries. I tried not to put myself in an authoritative role, however there were times when she crossed the personal-space boundary and I had to redirect her. Other conversations we had were about Barbie dolls and whether or not boys had kooties. When conversing with Pam, we talked about more grown-up topics such as boys, friends, school, and more; I felt I was able to hold a conversation with Pam, which was very different than my experience with Laney. I also felt like I could relate more to Pam because some of the situations she was going through, I had also gone through when I was her age.
I mentored Pam for about 8 months, until she stopped attending her appointments and her case was closed. I continued to occasionally see and talk to her after we "officially" ended. We still see each other once every six months or so and I think we'll be friends for years to come.
Message Edited by Allison on 09-08-2008 11:12 AM
