This month, we are focusing on how mentors can help students make a healthy transition to adulthood. In our culture today, it is not uncommon for students to graduate from high school with little direction (or motivation) to grow into healthy adults. Culturally, we have even created a new name for 18-29 year old’s who fit this description. We call them emerging adults. As mentors, we have a unique opportunity to come alongside our students and help them grow towards becoming a healthy adult.
In the last two Mentoring Minutes, we talked about the importance of helping students find their purpose and plan for their future.
A third way that we can help students make a healthy transition from high school graduate to healthy adult is to help them learn how to adapt to the changes and challenges that are often a part of life after high school. So, what does learning how to adapt mean? It means learning how to be flexible. It means having the ability to try new ways of doing things when the current ways aren’t working or are no longer effective. As mentors, we can start helping our students learn how to adapt by sharing stories of changes and challenges that we’ve experienced, guiding our students to resources that will help them navigate the changes and obstacles they encounter while still in high school, and by modeling it ourselves.
-Jason Matthews, BTO Mentor Coach