Navigating Tough Conversations
Has your mentee ever asked you a question or brought up a topic you found difficult to discuss? How prepared are you to have difficult conversations with your mentee? Topics like sex, politics, drugs or religion can be hard to talk about, especially with children....
How to Be An Ally – Training Recap
As mentors, we are often matched with mentees who have different lived experiences than our own. By using empathy and youth-centered approaches to mentoring, we can build our allyship skills. To do this, we must first understand what it means to be an ally. It’s...
Let’s Grow Together
Human development is a lifelong process of physical, behavioral, cognitive, and emotional growth and change. As our mentee grows and learns new things each year, it is important for mentors to keep up! Understanding our mentee’s current developmental stage is...
The Seedling Mentor Portal
Using the Mentor Portal is a requirement for mentoring with Seedling. Your Mentor Director sent you a link when you had your first visit. If you no longer have the link, simply ask your Mentor Director to resend it to you; they’ll be happy to do so. You can sign in...
Seedling Nurturing
I have a super handy app on my iphone, a life saver for any novice who enjoys growing plants. It is my go-to if my beloved flora is looking droopy or sad. All I have to do is pull up the app, snap a picture and presto, a specific Rx pops up to tell me how to care for...
Managing Stress
It seems like are constantly navigating extreme uncertainty. The hyper vigilance of staying safe, piloting constant change, and the effects of isolation and loneliness all take a toll. Fears and insecurity can create chronic stress which negatively impacts mental...
It’s Important
Given the significant social, environmental, and political events of the past year, it may feel like it’s more important now than ever to spend time with your mentee simply talking about their feelings to process all of the changes we’re experiencing. We always...
Processing Racism-Related Trauma through Creative Expression
In the last few years, our country has begun confronting racism and racial injustice on a scale that we haven’t seen since the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1960s. Understanding the history, scope, and implications of systemic racism is a complicated undertaking...
It Matters: Building Representation in Mentoring Relationships
On January 20, 2021, Kamala Harris was sworn in as Vice President, becoming the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to hold the office. The importance of the moment was not lost – across social media, posts celebrating this...
Ready, Set, Goals!
It is heartwarming to reconnect with our mentees each school year. The feeling that bubbles up when we see their face appear for that first meeting of the school year is nothing short of delightful. Seeing their face and hearing how they are doing feels like a long...
Talking About Current Events
We were all shaken by the acts of violence that took place January 6, 2021 in Washington D.C. and at several state capitals across the nation. The violent actions left a significant impact on us as a nation and as individuals and may lead to continued conversations...
Fighting Racism Through Mindfulness
Jill Suttie of Greater Good Magazine, interviews Law Professor Rhonda Magee on how mindfulness-based awareness and compassion is key to racial justice work. For more than two decades Professor Rhonda Magee has worked to address issues of race, racism, and...
Somatic Experiencing and Mentoring
“The super-power of human kind is our capacity to connect; it is regulating, rewarding, and the major route by which we can teach, coach, parent, heal, mentor and learn.” Dr. Bruce Perry At Seedling we often refer to our mentors as having “super powers.” You have...
Talking about Incarceration
Have you ever considered what it might be like for your mentee to have communication with their incarcerated or deported parent? Maybe it is only through letters, an infrequent phone call, or on rare occasions talking on a phone while looking at one another...
Mentoring and the Art of Validation
When little people are overwhelmed by big emotions, it is our job to share our calm, not join their chaos” -L.R. Knost As Seedling mentors, our goal is to be a trusted friend, boost our mentee’s positive self-esteem and safeguard their opportunity to thrive!...
Politics Anyone?
Presidential elections always come with a bit of apprehension, but this year’s upcoming election carries significantly more heated rhetoric and tension. In recent years, psychologists and child experts have repeatedly documented how political discourse has had a...
Talking With Your Mentee About Being Online
Mentoring provides you the unique opportunity to facilitate a conversation with your mentee about their online experiences. A conversation with your mentee doesn’t have to revolve exclusively around internet safety, but can also help them learn how to better navigate...
Encouraging a Growth Mindset
Mindset describes the way people view ability and talent. In her research and work on the mindset of psychological traits, Psychologist Carol S. Dweck identified 2 types of mindsets, fixed and growth. People with a fixed mindset believed their intelligence and...
Strategies For Engaging Your Mentee In Meaningful Discussion
How can I get my mentee to talk more? This thoughtful question asked by mentors is usually followed by recounts of open ended questions going unanswered, or mentees who don’t talk or look their mentor in the eye. It can be uncomfortable to sit in silence...
Mentoring & Social Justice
Seedling Mentoring is a journey that encourages persistence in acquiring new information and skills. Learning to promote social justice, to understand institutional oppression, and how to dismantle implicit biases and racism prepares mentors to be an upstander for...
Ten Characteristics of Flourishing (Mentoring) Relationships
It’s no secret that as we improve our mentoring skills, we enhance the other relationships in our lives. Whether we call ourselves parents, spouses, friends, or employees, improving in mentoring can enrich all of our relationships if we pay attention and transfer...
Solidifying Mentor & Mentee Connections
In the midst of the holiday season, mentors might wonder how the health of their relationships with their mentees may fair over the time that they don’t meet. Mentoring expert Jean Rhodes (2017) says that “it’s important to consider [a child’s] capacity for...
Attachment and Mentoring
Attachment is described by psychologists as an “enduring emotional bond that connects one person to another across time and space.” Though attachment is a term used mostly in infancy, its presence and importance can be seen throughout the lifespan. For children who...
How To Support Young People
We all need support in life. And supporting youth is especially important as they go through the ups and downs of growing up. Often young people turn to their parents and peers for support, but at other times they seek help from other adults in their life. So what’s...
Top 10 Rookie Mistakes in Running a Marathon (and in Mentoring)
The thought of running a marathon to some feels overwhelming and impossible, while others are energized and excited about the possibility. Like long distance running, mentoring a child takes proper preparation, agility, perseverance, perspective, and a healthy dose of...
Growth Mindset Builds Resilience
In order to promote Growth Mindset, parents, teachers, and mentors were advised to encourage effort instead of achievement. The part that often gets lost is that the effort that is encouraged should be the effort that includes two important points; exploration of...
Relationships Build Resilience
A primary goal of the Seedling mentor program is supporting students in building resilience. As mentors, sometimes we find ourselves asking if what we are doing has impact. Is it actually beneficial to our mentee? New research being conducted at Search Institute finds...
Six Ways To Positively Respond To Youth
March for Our Lives, on March 24, 2018, was one of the biggest youth protests since the Vietnam War. On June 30, 2018, more than 600 marches occurred throughout the country protesting the separation of immigrant families entering the U.S. We are seeing more and more...
Qualities Of A Good Role Model
Youngsters usually benefit from having a relationship with someone older and wiser to mentor them. Although the mentor might be a teacher, family member or more experienced peer, not everyone is suitable to be an influential, positive role model. Effective role models...