Quote:
Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi
I think this is a pretty difficult thing for many people to do, perhaps especially younger mentors. Expressing disappointment is only effective, in my opinion, when the students actually respect you. I know a few young mentors my age who can't use this tactic because the students don't respect them. I was lucky enough to have very respectful students, so it wasn't an issue for me, but what about when a mentor isn't respected by the students?
Might be a topic for another thread, but how do you get students to respect you? What might be some causes of this? Is it strictly because of the young age? Is it just on a student by student case?
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If you act like a student, people will treat you like a student. This is particularly a problem for college mentors that don't take a break. All you've ever really known is being a student (even if you were a lead student), and so I think they really don't know how to act when they start mentoring. When they realize they are acting like a student, they try too hard and overcompensate and then no one wants to hear what you have to say.
All mentors are not created equal -- there is always a hierarchy (And this goes for any organization). Realize you are starting on the bottom. If you want to be top dog that's awesome, but you're going to have to work and earn your way to the top. I get the impression that this bites some young mentors that switch from a relatively successful team to one that is perhaps more up and coming. If you've got knowledge to share, that's great and should help you move up the ladder but if you try and hold the process hostage you're probably going to get burned.
Worth noting that I haven't actually done much mentoring myself, but I did work at a lot of summer camps with kids that weren't much younger than me and have watched a bunch of other people go through this process, so YMMV.
