Mentoring A Child Quotes

Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

A child's reading is guided by pleasure, but his pleasure is undifferentiated; he cannot distinguish, for example, between aesthetic pleasure and the pleasures of learning or daydreaming. In adolescence we realize that there are different kinds of pleasure, some of which cannot be enjoyed simultaneously, but we need help from others in defining them. Whether it be a matter of taste in food or taste in literature, the adolescent looks for a mentor in whose authority he can believe. He eats or reads what his mentor recommends and, inevitably, there are occasions when he has to deceive himself a little; he has to pretend that he enjoys olives or War and Peace a little more than he actually does. Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity. Few of us can learn this without making mistakes, without trying to become a little more of a universal man than we are permitted to be. It is during this period that a writer can most easily be led astray by another writer or by some ideology. When someone between twenty and forty says, apropos of a work of art, 'I know what I like,'he is really saying 'I have no taste of my own but accept the taste of my cultural milieu', because, between twenty and forty, the surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it. After forty, if we have not lost our authentic selves altogether, pleasure can again become what it was when we were children, the proper guide to what we should read.

Quoting an experienced school counselor: "You can't change a bully into a flower child, but you can change him into a knight.

Sir Gerald Moore: I was at dinner last evening, and halfway through the pudding, this four-year-old child came alone, dragging a little toy cart. And on the cart was a fresh turd. Her own, I suppose. The parents just shook their heads and smiled. I've made a big investment in you, Peter. Time and money, and it's not working. Now, I could just shake my head and smile. But in my house, when a turd appears, we throw it out. We dispose of it. We flush it away. We don't put it on the table and call it caviar.

...dream BIG like a child!

It was my teacher's genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact which made the first years of my education so beautiful. It was because she seized the right moment to impart knowledge that made it so pleasant and acceptable to me. She realized that a child's mind is like a shallow brook which ripples and dances merrily over the stony course of its education and reflects here a flower, there a bush, yonder a fleecy cloud; and she attempted to guide my mind on its way, knowing that like a brook it should be fed by mountain streams and hidden springs, until it broadened out into a deep river, capable of reflecting in its placid surface, billowy hills, the luminous shadows of trees and the blue heavens, as well as the sweet face of a little flower. Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not every teacher can make him learn. He will not work joyously unless he feels that liberty is his, whether he is busy or at rest; he must feel the flush of victory and the heart-sinking of disappointment before he takes with a will the tasks distasteful to him and resolves to dance his way bravely through a dull routine of textbooks. My teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart from her. How much of my delight in all beautiful things is innate, and how much is due to her influence, I can never tell. I feel that her being is inseparable from my own, and that the footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to her--there is not a talent, or an aspiration or a joy in me that has not been awakened by her loving touch.

As children become increasingly less connected to adults, they rely more and more on each other; the whole natural order of things change. In the natural order of all mammalian cultures, animals or humans, the young stay under the wings of adults until they themselves reach adulthood. Immature creatures were never meant to bring one another to maturity. They were never meant to look to one another for primary nurturing, modelling, cue giving or mentoring. They are not equipped to give one another a sense of direction or values. As a result of today`s shift to this peer orientation, we are seeing the increasing immaturity, alienation, violence and precocious sexualization of North American Youth. The disruption of family life, rapid economic and social changes to human culture and relationships, and the erosion of stable communities are at the core of this shift.

who is better off, the child with a mentor who knows and tells everything or the one whose teacher helps the child find her own answers?

Teacher cannot solve or heal all student stress. The teacher can be vigilant in trying to guide the child toward solutions;but the teacher's job in relation to this stress is ultimately to help the child learn to manage his or her own stress wisely. In accomplishing this, the teacher mentors higher academic learning by removing distracting stress, and teaches valuable life-survival skills.

I have found that there are three key steps to identifying your own core personal projects. First, think back to what you loved to do when you were a child. How did you answer the question of what you wanted to be when you grew up? The specific answer you gave may have been off the mark, but the underlying impulse was not. If you wanted to be a fireman, what did a fireman mean to you? A good man who rescued people in distress? A daredevil? Or the simple pleasure of operating a truck? If you wanted to be a dancer, was it because you got to wear a costume, or because you craved applause, or was it the pure joy of twirling around at lightning speed? You may have known more about who you were then than you do now. Second, pay attention to the work you gravitate to. At my law firm I never once volunteered to take on an extra corporate legal assignment, but I did spend a lot of time doing pro bono work for a nonprofit women’s leadership organization. I also sat on several law firm committees dedicated to mentoring, training, and personal development for young lawyers in the firm. Now, as you can probably tell from this book, I am not the committee type. But the goals of those committees lit me up, so that’s what I did. Finally, pay attention to what you envy. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire.

As an associate at McKinsey & Company, my first assignment was on a team that consisted of a male senior engagement manager (SEM) and two other male associates, Abe Wu and Derek Holley. When the SEM wanted to talk to Abe or Derek, he would walk over to their desks. When he wanted to talk to me, he would sit at his desk and shout, "Sandberg, get over here!" with the tone one might use to call a child or, even worse, a dog. It made me cringe every time. I never said anything, but one day Abe and Derek started calling each other "Sandberg" in that same loud voice. The self-absorbed SEM never seemed to notice. They kept it up. When having too many Sandbergs got confusing, they decided we needed to differentiate. Abe started calling himself "Asian Sandberg," Derek dubbed himself "good-looking Sandberg," and I became "Sandberg Sandberg." My colleagues turned an awful situation into one where I felt protected. They stood up for me and made me laugh. They were the best mentors I could have had.

When I was a child, I first thought that these shades might be malevolent spirits who fostered evil in those people around whom they swarmed. I've since discovered that many human beings need no supernatural mentoring to commit acts of savagery; some people are devils in their own right, their telltale horns having grown inward to facilitate their disguise.

Nothing affects the youths like drugs,sex,money and cultism. Mentor your child very well.

The only way your child will grow out of their dependency into self-sufficient adults is for you to essentially abandon your own independence for 20 years or so.

If a child is lucky, there will always be one Mrs. Egorkin who'll play a pivotal role in his or her life.

Working outward in concentric circles from the single mother's situation, we can easily draw a picture of what a 'good' mother-son relationship needs in order to flourish. In its ideal form, mom would be experiencing physical, material, social, and emotional support from four interdependent sources: an intimate partner who is also attached to the child; a select group of close friends and family; a wider community that supports mom's values and goals; and a maternity-flexible workplace.

I was asked to talk to a roomful of undergraduates in a university in a beautiful coastal valley. I talked about place, about the way we often talk about love of place, but seldom how places love us back, of what they give us. They give us continuity, something to return to, and offer familiarity that allows some portion of our lives to remain collected and coherent. They give us an expansive scale in which our troubles are set into context, in which the largeness of the world is a balm to loss, trouble, and ugliness. And distant places give us refuge in territories where our own histories aren't so deeply entrenched and we can imagine other stories, other selves, or just drink up quiet and respite. The bigness of the world is redemption. Despair compresses you into a small space, and a depression is literally a hollow in the ground. To dig deeper into the self, to go underground, is sometimes necessary, but so is the other route of getting out of yourself, into the larger world, into the openness in which you need not clutch your story and your troubles so tightly to your chest. Being able to travel in both ways matters, and sometimes the way back into the heart of the question begins by going outward and beyond. This is the expansiveness that comes literally in a landscape or that tugs you out of yourself in a story..... I told the student that they were at an age when they might begin to choose the places that would sustain them the rest of their lives, that places were much more reliable than human beings, and often much longer-lasting, and I asked each of them where they felt at home. They answered, each of them, down the rows, for an hour, the immigrants who had never stayed anywhere long or left a familiar world behind, the teenagers who'd left the home they'd spent their whole lives in for the first time, the ones who loved or missed familiar landscapes and the ones who had not yet noticed them. I found books and places before I found friends and mentors, and they gave me a lot, if not quite what a human being would. As a child, I spun outward in trouble, for in that inside-out world [of my family], everywhere but home was safe. Happily, the oaks were there, the hills, the creeks, the groves, the birds, the old dairy and horse ranches, the rock outcroppings, the open space inviting me to leap out of the personal into the embrace of the nonhuman world.

SHE holds the hand to help you in your First Step, She is your First Teacher, SHE holds your hand when You Fall Down, SHE is the one who guides you in Life, SHE hides you from all Trouble, SHE is sometime Mentor, SHE even nurses you when you Fall ill, SHE gives you the confidence, SHE never give False Appreciation, SHE is the one who will scold you the most on your mistake, She is the one who even Fight for you when you are right, SHE is the one who believes in you when others do not, SHE is the one who Loves you even if You don't love her, SHE is the one who gave you LIFE, Do You know Who is 'SHE'?? 'SHE' is Mother your own MOM...

As a child, the best way to survive was to be still, to submit—to do nothing that might incur further harm. That belief had grown with me through my teens, my twenties, my thirties, an unacknowledged mentor directing my every path, reinforcing a ubiquitous sense of powerlessness and victimhood. I had believed that I was bad, and unloveable, and cowardly, and weak—beliefs that had been unconscious, and had always gone unchallenged. I believed them because they were true, and they were true because I believed them.

Being an effective mentor means becoming a coconspirator, a fellow explorer, a chaser of clues.

What makes a mother? Looking at your child and identifying emotion

How you are with children has a lot to do with how you were directly mentored by the adults in your life when you were a child.

Imagine what it must be like for teenagers who don't feel they have room to breathe in their own homes. If you are a parent reading this book, you care about your child. If she is quirky, unusual, or nonconformist, ask yourself whether you are doing everything you can to nurture her unusual interests, style, or skills, or whether instead you are directly or subtly pushing her to hide them.

But one day, as a much older man, Garry wrote in his diary a formula that might help him overcome that pain and not only heal his own inner child but pass on the lesson to the many surrogate children he had as a mentor and elder in show business.* The formula was simple and is key to breaking the cycle and stilling the deep anguish we carry around with us: Give more. Give what you didn’t get. Love more. Drop the old story. Try it, if you can.

Sometimes I think Earth has got to be the insane asylum of the universe. . . and I'm here by computer error. At sixty-eight, I hope I've gained some wisdom in the past fourteen lustrums and it’s obligatory to speak plain and true about the conclusions I've come to; now that I have been educated to believe by such mentors as Wells, Stapledon, Heinlein, van Vogt, Clarke, Pohl, (S. Fowler) Wright, Orwell, Taine, Temple, Gernsback, Campbell and other seminal influences in scientifiction, I regret the lack of any female writers but only Radclyffe Hall opened my eyes outside sci-fi. I was a secular humanist before I knew the term. I have not believed in God since childhood's end. I believe a belief in any deity is adolescent, shameful and dangerous. How would you feel, surrounded by billions of human beings taking Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy and the stork seriously, and capable of shaming, maiming or murdering in their name? I am embarrassed to live in a world retaining any faith in church, prayer or a celestial creator. I do not believe in Heaven, Hell or a Hereafter; in angels, demons, ghosts, goblins, the Devil, vampires, ghouls, zombies, witches, warlocks, UFOs or other delusions; and in very few mundane individuals--politicians, lawyers, judges, priests, militarists, censors and just plain people. I respect the individual's right to abortion, suicide and euthanasia. I support birth control. I wish to Good that society were rid of smoking, drinking and drugs. My hope for humanity - and I think sensible science fiction has a beneficial influence in this direction - is that one day everyone born will be whole in body and brain, will live a long life free from physical and emotional pain, will participate in a fulfilling way in their contribution to existence, will enjoy true love and friendship, will pity us 20th century barbarians who lived and died in an atrocious, anachronistic atmosphere of arson, rape, robbery, kidnapping, child abuse, insanity, murder, terrorism, war, smog, pollution, starvation and the other negative “norms” of our current civilization. I have devoted my life to amassing over a quarter million pieces of sf and fantasy as a present to posterity and I hope to be remembered as an altruist who would have been an accepted citizen of Utopia.

Your most important job as a parent, or as a friend to a child, is to mentor children in a field of unconditional love and acceptance. Your gift is to see the rightness in them and reflect it back. You are the witness of the Divine in them.

They were not actively mentoring and encouraging individuality in the child.  The child learned how to survive, but not how to thrive.  They carried these survival mechanisms into adulthood, and never stopped to realize that this was no way to live.

It seems a simple task. We all know what water looks like, feels like in our mouth. Water is ubiquitous. Describing a cup of water feels a little like doing a still life painting. As a child I used to wonder: Why do people spend so much time painting bowls of fruit, when they could be painting dragons? Why learn to describe a cup of water, when the story is about cool magic and (well) dragons? It’s a thing I had trouble with as a teenage writer—I’d try to rush through the “boring” parts to get to the interesting parts, instead of learning how to make the boring parts into the interesting parts. And a cup of water is vital to this. Robert Jordan showed me that a cup of water can be a cultural dividing line–the difference between someone who grew up between two rivers, and someone who’d never seen a river before a few weeks ago. A cup of water can be an offhand show of wealth, in the shape of an ornamented cup. It can be a mark of traveling hard, with nothing better to drink. It can be a symbol of better times, when you had something clean and pure. A cup of water isn’t just a cup of water, it’s a means of expressing character. Because stories aren’t about cups of water, or even magic and dragons. They’re about the people painted, illuminated, and changed by magic and dragons.

I’ve come to recognize this as something of a local custom—to express enthusiasm and agreement without real interest. A kind of polite but unyielding distance that saturates so many interactions. But now, their raised eyebrows and tight-lipped smiles fill me with a new sadness, clarifying where I stand in their eyes. Theirs isn’t the gaze of a mentor upon a student but a fixed asymmetry. They look at me as though I am a child whom they can tolerate at the table as long as I know my place. For years, I’ve sensed this violent but hidden truth—that beyond the welcome smiles of this country lies a vast and impenetrable wall: a national self-regard that insists on a mythic goodness. This is a nation that gives and gives to the less fortunate and asks nothing in return. Nothing, that is, but our grateful acquiescence to their silent expectations.

Anticipating their calamity and fright when deportation day came (August 6, 1942) he [Henryk Goldszmit, pen name: Janusz Korczak] joined them aboard the train bound for Treblinka, because, he said, he knew his presence would calm them—“You do not leave a sick child in the night, and you do not leave children at a time like this.” A photograph taken at the Umschlagplatz (Transshipment Square) shows him marching, hatless, in military boots, hand in hand with several children, while 192 other children and ten staff members follow, four abreast, escorted by German soldiers. Korczak and the children boarded red boxcars not much larger than chicken coops, usually stuffed with seventy-five vertical adults, though all the children easily fit. In Joshua Perle’s eyewitness account in The Destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, he describes the scene: “A miracle occurred, two hundred pure souls, condemned to death, did not weep. Not one of them ran away. None tried to hide. Like stricken swallows they clung to their teacher and mentor, to their father and brother, Janusz Korczak.” In 1971, the Russians named a newly discovered asteroid after him, 2163 Korczak, but maybe they should have named it Ro, the planet he dreamed of. The Poles claim Korczak as a martyr, and the Israelis revere him as one of the Thirty-Six Just Men, whose pure souls make possible the world’s salvation. According to Jewish legend, these few, through their good hearts and good deeds, keep the too-wicked world from being destroyed. For their sake alone, all of humanity is spared. The legend tells that they are ordinary people, not flawless or magical, and that most of them remain unrecognized throughout their lives, while they choose to perpetuate goodness, even in the midst of inferno.

DEAR MAMA, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write. Every time I try to write to you and Papa I realize I’m not saying the things that are in my heart. That would be O.K., if I loved you any less than I do, but you are still my parents and I am still your child. I have friends who think I’m foolish to write this letter. I hope they’re wrong. I hope their doubts are based on parents who loved and trusted them less than mine do. I hope especially that you’ll see this as an act of love on my part, a sign of my continuing need to share my life with you. I wouldn’t have written, I guess, if you hadn’t told me about your involvement in the Save Our Children campaign. That, more than anything, made it clear that my responsibility was to tell you the truth, that your own child is homosexual, and that I never needed saving from anything except the cruel and ignorant piety of people like Anita Bryant. I’m sorry, Mama. Not for what I am, but for how you must feel at this moment. I know what that feeling is, for I felt it for most of my life. Revulsion, shame, disbelief—rejection through fear of something I knew, even as a child, was as basic to my nature as the color of my eyes. No, Mama, I wasn’t “recruited.” No seasoned homosexual ever served as my mentor. But you know what? I wish someone had. I wish someone older than me and wiser than the people in Orlando had taken me aside and said, “You’re all right, kid. You can grow up to be a doctor or a teacher just like anyone else. You’re not crazy or sick or evil. You can succeed and be happy and find peace with friends—all kinds of friends—who don’t give a damn who you go to bed with. Most of all, though, you can love and be loved, without hating yourself for it.” But no one ever said that to me, Mama. I had to find it out on my own, with the help of the city that has become my home. I know this may be hard for you to believe, but San Francisco is full of men and women, both straight and gay, who don’t consider sexuality in measuring the worth of another human being. These aren’t radicals or weirdos, Mama. They are shop clerks and bankers and little old ladies and people who nod and smile to you when you meet them on the bus. Their attitude is neither patronizing nor pitying. And their message is so simple: Yes, you are a person. Yes, I like you. Yes, it’s all right for you to like me too. I know what you must be thinking now. You’re asking yourself: What did we do wrong? How did we let this happen? Which one of us made him that way? I can’t answer that, Mama. In the long run, I guess I really don’t care. All I know is this: If you and Papa are responsible for the way I am, then I thank you with all my heart, for it’s the light and the joy of my life. I know I can’t tell you what it is to be gay. But I can tell you what it’s not. It’s not hiding behind words, Mama. Like family and decency and Christianity. It’s not fearing your body, or the pleasures that God made for it. It’s not judging your neighbor, except when he’s crass or unkind. Being gay has taught me tolerance, compassion and humility. It has shown me the limitless possibilities of living. It has given me people whose passion and kindness and sensitivity have provided a constant source of strength. It has brought me into the family of man, Mama, and I like it here. I like it. There’s not much else I can say, except that I’m the same Michael you’ve always known. You just know me better now. I have never consciously done anything to hurt you. I never will. Please don’t feel you have to answer this right away. It’s enough for me to know that I no longer have to lie to the people who taught me to value the truth. Mary Ann sends her love. Everything is fine at 28 Barbary Lane. Your loving son, MICHAEL

What did you want to be when you were growing up? What does your child think you do? What’s the best lesson you learned from a parent, friend, or mentor? How did you get started? What do you love about your job? How does what you do make a difference to others? What frustrates you? What makes you proud? Who are your heroes and why?

If we cannot leave something tangible behind – such as a gene or a poem – perhaps it is enough if we just make the world a little better? You can help somebody, and that somebody will subsequently help somebody else, and you thereby contribute to the overall improvement of the world, and constitute a small link in the great chain of kindness. Maybe you serve as a mentor for a difficult but brilliant child, who goes on to be a doctor who saves the lives of hundreds? Maybe you help an old lady cross the street, and brighten up an hour of her life? Though it has its merits, the great chain of kindness is a bit like the great chain of turtles – it is far from clear where its meaning comes from. A wise old man was asked what he learned about the meaning of life. ‘Well,’ he answered, ‘I have learned that I am here on earth in order to help other people. What I still haven’t figured out is why the other people are here.

As I detailed in my TED Talk, I think we all have two main characters in our heads: a rational decision-maker (the adult in your head) and an instant gratification monkey (the child in your head who doesn’t care about consequences and just wants to maximize the ease and pleasure of the current moment). For me, these two are in a constant battle, and the monkey usually wins. But I’ve found that if I turn life into a yin-yang situation—e.g., “work till 6 today, then no work till tomorrow”—it’s much easier to control the monkey in the work period. Knowing he has something fun to look forward to later makes him much more likely to cooperate. In my old system, the monkey was in a constant state of rebellion against a system that never really gave him any dedicated time.

If we cannot leave something tangible behind - such as agene or a poem - perhaps it is enough if we just make the world a little better? You can help somebody, and that somebody will subsequently help somebody else, and you thereby contribute to the overall improvement of the world, and constitute a small link in the great chain of kindness. Maybe you serve as a mentor for a difficult but brilliant child, who goes on to be a doctor who saves the lives of hundreds? Maybe you help an old lady cross the street, and brighten up an hour of her life? Though it has its merits, the great chain of kindness is a bit like the great chain of turtles it is far from clear where its meaning comes from. A wise old man was asked what he learned about the meaning of life. 'Well,' he answered, 'I have learned that I am here on earth in order to help other people. What I still haven't figured out is why the other people are here.' (page 172)

Indeed, equal amounts of research support both assertions: that mentorship works and that it doesn’t. Mentoring programs break down in the workplace so often that scholarly research contradicts itself about the value of mentoring at all, and prompts Harvard Business Review articles with titles such as “Why Mentoring Doesn’t Work.” The mentorship slip is illustrated well by family businesses: 70 percent of them fail when passed to the second generation. A business-owner parent is in a perfect spot to mentor his or her child to run a company. And yet, sometime between mentorship and the business handoff, something critical doesn’t stick. One of the most tantalizing ideas about training with a master is that the master can help her protégé skip several steps up the ladder. Sometimes this ends up producing Aristotle. But sometimes it produces Icarus, to whom his father and master craftsman Daedalus of Greek mythology gave wings; Icarus then flew too high too fast and died. Jimmy Fallon’s mentor, one of the best-connected managers Jimmy could have for his SNL dream, served him up on a platter to SNL auditions in a fraction of the expected time it should take a new comedian to get there. But Jimmy didn’t cut it—yet. There was still one more ingredient, the one that makes the difference between rapid-rising protégés who soar and those who melt their wings and crash. III.

Type II trauma also often occurs within a closed context - such as a family, a religious group, a workplace, a chain of command, or a battle group - usually perpetrated by someone related or known to the victim. As such, it often involves fundamental betrayal of the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator and within the community (Freyd, 1994). It may also involve the betrayal of a particular role and the responsibility associated with the relationship (i.e., parent-child, family member-child, therapist-client, teacher-student, clergy-child/adult congregant, supervisor-employee, military officer-enlisted man or woman). Relational dynamics of this sort have the effect of further complicating the victim's survival adaptations, especially when a superficially caring, loving or seductive relationship is cultivated with the victim (e.g., by an adult mentor such as a priest, coach, or teacher; by an adult who offers a child special favors for compliance; by a superior who acts as a protector or who can offer special favors and career advancement). In a process labelled "selection and grooming", potential abusers seek out as potential victims those who appear insecure, are needy and without resources, and are isolated from others or are obviously neglected by caregivers or those who are in crisis or distress for which they are seeking assistance. This status is then used against the victim to seduce, coerce, and exploit. Such a scenario can lead to trauma bonding between victim and perpetrator (i.e., the development of an attachment bond based on the traumatic relationship and the physical and social contact), creating additional distress and confusion for the victim who takes on the responsibility and guilt for what transpired, often with the encouragement or insinuation of the perpetrator(s) to do so.

Sharon passed around a handout: "Triangle of Self-Actualization" by Abraham Maslow. The levels of human motivation. It resembled the nutrition triangle put out by the FDA, with five horizontal levels of multiple colors. I vaguely remembered it from my one college psychology course in the 1970's. "Very applicable with refugees," Sharon said. "Maslow theorized that one could not move to a higher level until the prior level was satisfied. The first level, the triangle base, is physiological needs. Like food and water. Until a person has enough to eat and drink, that's all one would be concerned with." I'd never experienced not being able to satisfy my thirst or hunger, but it sounded logical that that would be my only concern in such a situation. For the Lost Boys, just getting enough food and water had been a daily struggle. I wondered what kind of impact being stuck at the bottom level for the last fourteen years would have on a person, especially a child and teen. "The second level is safety and security. Home. A sanctuary. A safe place." Like not being shot at or having lions attack you. They hadn't had much of level two, either. Even Kakuma hadn't been safe. A refugee camp couldn't feel like home. "The third level is social. A sense of belonging." Since they'd been together, they must have felt like they belonged, but perhaps not on a larger scale, having been displaced from home and living in someone else's country. "Once a person has food, shelter, family and friends, they can advance to the fourth level, which is ego. Self-esteem." I'd never thought of those things occurring sequentially, but rather simultaneously, as they did in my life. If I understood correctly, working on their self-esteem had not been a large concern to them, if one at all. That was bound to affect them eventually. In what way remained to be seen. They'd been so preoccupied with survival that issues of self-worth might overwhelm them at first. A sure risk for insecurity and depression. The information was fascinating and insightful, although worrisome in terms of Benson, Lino, and Alepho. It also made me wonder about us middle-and upper-class Americans. We seldom worried about food, except for eating too much, and that was not what Maslow had been referring to. Most of us had homes and safety and friends and family. That could mean we were entirely focused on that fourth level: ego. Our efforts to make ourselves seem strong, smart, rich, and beautiful, or young were our own kind of survival skill. Perhaps advancing directly to the fourth level, when the mind was originally engineered for the challenges of basic survival, was why Prozac and Zoloft, both antidepressants, were two of the biggest-selling drugs in America. "The pinnacle of the triangle," Sharon said, "is the fifth level. Self-actualization. A strong and deeply felt belief that as a person one has value in the world. Contentment with who one is rather than what one has. Secure in ones beliefs. Not needing ego boosts from external factors. Having that sense of well-being that does not depend on the approval of others is commonly called happiness." Happiness, hard to define, yet obvious when present. Most of us struggled our entire lives to achieve it, perhaps what had brought some of us to a mentoring class that night.

It’s not always so easy, it turns out, to identify your core personal projects. And it can be especially tough for introverts, who have spent so much of their lives conforming to extroverted norms that by the time they choose a career, or a calling, it feels perfectly normal to ignore their own preferences. They may be uncomfortable in law school or nursing school or in the marketing department, but no more so than they were back in middle school or summer camp. I, too, was once in this position. I enjoyed practicing corporate law, and for a while I convinced myself that I was an attorney at heart. I badly wanted to believe it, since I had already invested years in law school and on-the-job training, and much about Wall Street law was alluring. My colleagues were intellectual, kind, and considerate (mostly). I made a good living. I had an office on the forty-second floor of a skyscraper with views of the Statue of Liberty. I enjoyed the idea that I could flourish in such a high-powered environment. And I was pretty good at asking the “but” and “what if” questions that are central to the thought processes of most lawyers. It took me almost a decade to understand that the law was never my personal project, not even close. Today I can tell you unhesitatingly what is: my husband and sons; writing; promoting the values of this book. Once I realized this, I had to make a change. I look back on my years as a Wall Street lawyer as time spent in a foreign country. It was absorbing, it was exciting, and I got to meet a lot of interesting people whom I never would have known otherwise. But I was always an expatriate. Having spent so much time navigating my own career transition and counseling others through theirs, I have found that there are three key steps to identifying your own core personal projects. First, think back to what you loved to do when you were a child. How did you answer the question of what you wanted to be when you grew up? The specific answer you gave may have been off the mark, but the underlying impulse was not. If you wanted to be a fireman, what did a fireman mean to you? A good man who rescued people in distress? A daredevil? Or the simple pleasure of operating a truck? If you wanted to be a dancer, was it because you got to wear a costume, or because you craved applause, or was it the pure joy of twirling around at lightning speed? You may have known more about who you were then than you do now. Second, pay attention to the work you gravitate to. At my law firm I never once volunteered to take on an extra corporate legal assignment, but I did spend a lot of time doing pro bono work for a nonprofit women’s leadership organization. I also sat on several law firm committees dedicated to mentoring, training, and personal development for young lawyers in the firm. Now, as you can probably tell from this book, I am not the committee type. But the goals of those committees lit me up, so that’s what I did. Finally, pay attention to what you envy. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire. I met my own envy after some of my former law school classmates got together and compared notes on alumni career tracks. They spoke with admiration and, yes, jealousy, of a classmate who argued regularly before the Supreme Court. At first I felt critical. More power to that classmate! I thought, congratulating myself on my magnanimity. Then I realized that my largesse came cheap, because I didn’t aspire to argue a case before the Supreme Court, or to any of the other accolades of lawyering. When I asked myself whom I did envy, the answer came back instantly. My college classmates who’d grown up to be writers or psychologists. Today I’m pursuing my own version of both those roles.

Breathturn” by Hammock “Your Hand in Mine” by Explosions in the Sky “Devi Prayer” by Craig Pruess and Ananda “Horizon” by Tycho “Recurring” by Bonobo “Hanging On” by Active Child “Long Time Sun” by Snatam Kaur “Angels Prayer” by Ty Burhoe, James Hoskins, Cat McCarthy, Manorama, and Janaki Kagel “Twentytwofourteen” by The Album Leaf

Child ministers are not just Sunday school teachers, mentors, or case workers. They are prophets and heroes of the faith.

You need a Community to Parent your child. If you are the only one doing the "Parenting" trust me, you have a long way to go. Your child needs SOME skills you DON'T HAVE. If you had THOSE SKILLS, they still would need others YOU STILL WOULDN'T HAVE. My point? You ain't perfect! If you are the only one doing the parenting you are just starting. And I bet You, YOU WILL BE SO SLOW at it and their would be certain areas you can't touch. You need PARTNERS. Partners of your CHOOSING! Partners to help you reach your goal of PARENTING your child. Your pastor or imam for CERTAIN spiritual goals. Your FRIEND (who has been there, done that) for INSPIRING your child through an EXAM. Your Child's TEACHER for CERTAIN Learning objectives. A Mentor to TEACH your child (un)COMMON SENSE. A coach to SHOW your child the Way. Your Child's FRIENDS to teach him SOCIAL SKILLS. YOUR dad, to teach your child HISTORY of your FAMILY. YOUR GRANDMA to TEACH him Service to Elders. And so on like that... Small, small deliberate goals...for which you need a COMMUNITY of your CHOOSING. The key is to be DELIBERATE and PLAN ahead while sourcing for your PARENTING PARTNERS. It's your GOAL, not theirs. It's their STYLE not YOURS. It's their TIME not YOURS. AND YES, Its your CHILD, not theirs! It takes more than love to parent a child.

The well-intentioned thinking of ignoring racial differences within the classroom or the family home is something that can naturally be what we turn to as educators and parents. Our moral compass and societal upbringing may have reinforced the idea that being “color-blind” and “treating all children the same” are ways of being fair, being consistent, and also honoring the child for who they are, not what they look like. During my practicum in training to become a certified schoolteacher, I distinctly remember my assigned mentor teacher telling me, “I don’t see differences in the classroom.” Although this may seem appropriate to pass onto others or adopt in one’s own philosophy of education, the reality is that by ignoring differences in children, we are erasing the very complexity and nuances that each child brings to the table.

It’s one thing to think of a generation of kids who might not know What Every Fifth Grader Should Know. It’s another to think fearfully of your own beloved child competing against a generation of kids who might have some key bit of information or crucial skill that your child does not.

Whatever the army had failed to teach me about staying out of sight, they had made up for by teaching me a lot about fighting. They had taken one look at me and sent me straight to the gym. I was like a lot of military children. We had weird backgrounds. We had lived all over the world. Part of our culture was to learn from the locals. Not history or language or political concerns. We learned fighting from them. Their favored techniques. Martial arts from the Far East, full-on brawling from the seamier parts of Europe, blades and rocks and bottles from the seamier parts of the States. By the age of twelve we had it all boiled down to a kind of composite uninhibited ferocity. Especially uninhibited. We had learned that inhibitions will hurt you faster than anything else. Just do it was our motto, well before Nike started making shoes. Those of us who signed up for military careers of our own were recognized and mentored and offered further tuition, where we were taken apart and put back together again. We thought we were tough when we were twelve. At eighteen, we thought we were unbeatable. We weren’t. But we were very close to it, by the age of twenty-five.

Among the categories recommended by teachers, oddly, the most productive was the youngest in the class, yielding almost 20 percent. That category contributed more to the study than did the teachers’ nominations for the brightest. It is not clear why; certainly Terman never considered the possibility the youngest in the class were also the most challenged, which contradicted the educational philosophy of Hall, his mentor. But he admitted puzzlement about the finding. “If one would identify the brightest child in a class of thirty to fifty pupils, it is better to consult the birth records in the class register than to ask the teacher’s opinion.

Theo snaps his fingers over the table, drawing his mentor’s attention back to himself. He went from looking amused to downright murderous. “Watch your fucking tone when you’re talking to the mother of my child.

Surveys clearly show that most Americans place high importance on family and fatherhood. Those among us who have had the blessing of a loving father must reach out to the four in ten children in our society who come home each day from school to fatherless homes. In fact, each of us at this moment might well ask ourselves this question: Is there a child out there somewhere who deserves the same blessings I received from a father and who needs someone to walk alongside him or her through the travails of youth? Shouldn’t we all be mentors of one kind or another? If we do not reach out to the fatherless children in our nation, we can count on confronting severe societal problems for years to come. More importantly, as people who have experienced the love of an earthly father, and the love of God of the universe, can we do less?

You can’t separate how you approach life as a family and how your child will approach life as a thinker and learner. Your home is your child’s first workplace, first studio, first school — and your family members are your child’s first friends, first coworkers, first audience, first collaborators. You are his first mentor, and his siblings are his first teammates. You can’t separate learning from living. If your daily habits and routines don’t support your learning goals, you need to get them back into alignment. You want to build a family culture that celebrates and supports meaningful work. This is much more than saying the right thing — this is creating a lifestyle, a set of articulated beliefs, and a daily routine that encourage and sustain the life you want for your family. Building a family culture means being purposeful with your choices. What you say you value pales in importance next to the way you live from day to day, the choices you make, big and small.

Initiation is the bottom line of masculinity. It means taking the lead. The lead in providing, protecting, mentoring, and befriending. It means caring for and developing our mates, our children, and ourselves. It means taking the lead in apologizing. The lead in seeking forgiveness. The lead in vulnerability. Masculinity means initiation. C. S. Lewis, as you might expect, said it brilliantly: “God is so masculine, that all of creation is feminine by comparison.

There are many things you can do to help your child direct and manage her own learning, but perhaps the most important one is choosing how and where to put your attention. Think hard about what you value most, because that’s what deserves your attention. Your child will respond by doing more of whatever earns your focus. You feed a behavior with your attention, and by feeding it, you create more of it — so be thoughtful about what you invest with that power. Contemplate your goals and intentions.

I can't say I ever remember getting less than a whole child in my 29 years here. They come in whole and I teach 'em that way.

Project-based homeschooling is concerned with the underlying motives, habits, and attitudes of thinking and learning. However you feel about knowledge and skills — whether you’re a Latin-loving classicist or a relaxed unschooler or somewhere in-between — the point of project-based homeschooling is to devote some time to helping your child direct and manage his own learning. This does not have to comprise your entire curriculum. (Though it can.) It does not have to be the primary focus of your learning life. (Though it can be.) But it is essential. It is the part of your child’s education that is focused on that underlying machinery. It is the part of your child’s learning life that is focused on your child’s very specific and unique interests, talents, and passions. It is the part of your child’s learning when he is not only free to explore whatever interests him, but he receives attention, support, and consistent, dependable mentoring to help him succeed.

The child who is a skilled thinker and adept learner can adjust to whatever the future doles out. She can spackle in those holes in her knowledge, and she knows how to acquire skills she needs to do things she wants to do. On the other hand, the child who shoveled down his prepared education but lost his curiosity, whose interests withered away and were replaced by a general malaise and desire to just be left alone — that child has a bagful of knowledge and skills with varying expiration dates and dubious ability or desire to acquire more.

Lifelong learning” is a phrase so trite it makes your teeth hurt, but being a good mentor means showing your child that learning doesn’t stop when someone hands you a diploma. Not by treacly speech, but by everyday immersion in a life that celebrates learning interesting things and doing challenging, meaningful work.

Some adults attempting project-based learning make the same mistake, moving forward relentlessly and forgetting the importance of doubling back. Interests are identified, research is completed, and then there is a big, impressive third act that brings everything to a close. Unfortunately, though appealing in its simplicity, this highly controlled approach cheats children out of the opportunity to lay down multiple layers of learning. The adult is satisfied. Is the child?

Your child may be under more stress than you realize. Remember that situations around to past experiences. Just because you do not see something as a big deal does not mean it is not for your child.

Do Not Dictate a Child through Someone, it Ruins the Child's Experience.

Kids are scared, uncertain and just finding their way. Be a loving mentor. Extend your wisdom patiently.

IN ADDITION, THROUGHOUT THESE CHAPTERS, I OFFER PRACTICAL insights about genius such as these: IQ, mentors, and Ivy League educations are greatly overrated. No matter how “gifted” your child is, you do him or her no favor by treating him or her like a prodigy. The best way to have a brilliant insight is to engage in creative relaxation: go for a walk, take a shower, or get a good night’s sleep with pen and paper by the bed. To be more productive, adopt a daily ritual for work. To improve your chances of being a genius, move to a metropolis or a university town. To live longer, find your passion. Finally, take heart, because it is never too late to be creative: for every youthful Mozart there is an aged Verdi; for every precocious Picasso, a Grandma Moses.

Further Reading For the Children’s Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay The Brave Learner: Finding Everyday Magic in Homeschool, Learning, and Life by Julie Bogart The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids by Sarah Mackenzie Rethinking School: How to Take Charge of Your Child’s Education by Susan Wise Bauer A Gracious Space: Daily Reflections to Sustain Your Homeschooling Commitment by Julie Bogart Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler’s Guide to Unshakable Peace by Sarah Mackenzie Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life by Peter Gray Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature by Scott D. Sampson Home Grown: Adventures in Parenting off the Beaten Path, Unschooling, and Reconnecting with the Natural World by Ben Hewitt Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners by Lori Pickert Let’s Play Math: How Families Can Learn Math Together—and Enjoy It by Denise Gaskins The Art of Self-Directed Learning: 23 Tips for Giving Yourself an Unconventional Education by Blake Boles Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type by Isabel Briggs Meyers and Peter B. Myers

We need teachers to nurture and mentor our children.

1. Be encouraging but not intrusive. You are a consultant at their will. Your job is to be caring and supportive of your child, to mentor only when called upon, and to be your child’s biggest cheerleader.

What to Do Tonight Support autonomy, support autonomy, support autonomy. Explore where your child’s true inner motivation lies. You can do this by asking when in life he or she feels “really happy.” Kids with a healthy self-drive will commonly think of times when they perform well in school or in sports, are engaged in pleasurable pastimes, or do something fun with their friends or family. In contrast, kids who are obsessively motivated or have difficulty sustaining motivation and effort will often say that they feel happiest when they have no responsibilities, when nothing is expected of them, and when they feel no pressure. Make a point of speaking with your kids about what it is they want in life. What do they love to do? What do they feel they’re good at? If there’s a reason they’re here, what might that be? Help your child articulate (and write down) goals. We will explore this in more depth in Chapter Ten. For now, simply the act of voicing where she wants to get is a remarkably constructive step. Encourage flow in any activity by giving your kids the space and time they need to do what they love. Teach and model a love of challenge and persistence in the face of difficulty. Attribute positive motivational qualities to young kids (e.g., “I’ve noticed that you don’t give up on things.”). Teach your kids not to be overly preoccupied with pleasing others. If they’re focused on external feedback, consider occasionally saying something like, “Everybody feels good when they’re successful at things and get positive feedback from other people. It’s completely normal. My experience, though, is that the wisest thing is to evaluate your own performance and to focus on getting better at doing the right thing.” If your child doesn’t seem to have a passion, remember that there are many people and experiences that will positively influence their lives. Seek out mentors or role models in different fields, and expose them to a range of careers and life choices.

Having spent so much time navigating my own career transition and counseling others through theirs, I have found that there are three key steps to identifying your own core personal projects. First, think back to what you loved to do when you were a child. How did you answer the question of what you wanted to be when you grew up? The specific answer you gave may have been off the mark, but the underlying impulse was not. If you wanted to be a fireman, what did a fireman mean to you? A good man who rescued people in distress? A daredevil? Or the simple pleasure of operating a truck? If you wanted to be a dancer, was it because you got to wear a costume, or because you craved applause, or was it the pure joy of twirling around at lightning speed? You may have known more about who you were then than you do now. Second, pay attention to the work you gravitate to. At my law firm I never once volunteered to take on an extra corporate legal assignment, but I did spend a lot of time doing pro bono work for a nonprofit women’s leadership organization. I also sat on several law firm committees dedicated to mentoring, training, and personal development for young lawyers in the firm. Now, as you can probably tell from this book, I am not the committee type. But the goals of those committees lit me up, so that’s what I did. Finally, pay attention to what you envy. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire. I met my own envy after some of my former law school classmates got together and compared notes on alumni career tracks. They spoke with admiration and, yes, jealousy, of a classmate who argued regularly before the Supreme Court. At first I felt critical. More power to that classmate! I thought, congratulating myself on my magnanimity. Then I realized that my largesse came cheap, because I didn’t aspire to argue a case before the Supreme Court, or to any of the other accolades of lawyering. When I asked myself whom I did envy, the answer came back instantly. My college classmates who’d grown up to be writers or psychologists. Today I’m pursuing my own version of both those roles.

The same principle applies to your negative emotions. You need to be a parent to your emotions, just like you would with a child. Take the time to sit with your feelings, communicate with them, and understand why they behave the way they do. When I say “sit with your feelings,” I mean start journaling.

No matter what his or her age, when a child has a serious and productive interest in something, do anything possible to feed it. Be the perfect enabler. Drive anywhere. Fly anywhere. Rearrange schedules. Get or otherwise provide access to the supplies and props (and animals and vehicles and equipment and …). Find the experts, communities, even mentors. (Eventually you’ll want to find people who can provide real and credible feedback.) Just as importantly, protect the child from the trivial work inevitably and often mindlessly and reflexively foisted on him or her by others. A year absolutely dedicated to a single area of deep passion is better than the potpourri of modern curricula.

1 am green. A lotus flower in full-bloom residing in the lushness of the heart. Reaching, embracing, nourishing all in need. Fragile as the morning dew, as expansive as the depth offragrant forests. Ultimate unconditional acceptance, like the Mother Earth's love for her children. I am blue. Calm and cool, a reflection in a mirrored pond. Diamond stars married to the nighttime sky. The ocean waves curling back to their source. Kind, compassionate words serving as our guide, teacher, and mentor. Father Sky carries truth in the celestial music of his voice. I am purple. The richness of velvet and the elegance of silk. Diamonds of intuition embedded in the space of all-knowingness. Imagination running through the vastness of the dreamscape, playing in afield of swaying lavender, swirling in the energy of dimensions. Insight radiates softly into the mind's eye. I am white. Living within us like the innocence of a child. Sitting quietly, still with peace and patience, ready to serve. Every sparkling, dazzling particle on our planet shining forth universal light. The phenomenal beauty of pure Spirit. I am many colors. NOTE TO READERS This book is intended as an informational guide and is not meant to treat, diagnose, or prescribe. For any medical condition, physical conditions, or symptoms, always consult with a qualified physician or appropriate health care professional. Neither the author nor the publisher accepts any responsibility for your health or how you choose to use the information contained in this book. Names and identifying details have

How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature by Scott D. Sampson Home Grown: Adventures in Parenting off the Beaten Path, Unschooling, and Reconnecting with the Natural World by Ben Hewitt Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners by Lori Pickert Let’s Play Math: How Families Can Learn Math Together—and Enjoy It by Denise Gaskins The Art of Self-Directed Learning: 23 Tips for Giving Yourself an Unconventional Education by Blake Boles Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type by Isabel Briggs Meyers and Peter B. Myers

One other named Kinsey pedophile was Rex King, an American serial child rapist also known as “Mr. Braun,” “Mr. Green,” and “Mr. X.” The “king” of child molesters is on record as raping at least eight hundred children, the youngest two months of age. Kinsey met King in about 1943 when King demonstrated his instant-orgasm ability for Kinsey and Pomeroy.84 Kinsey’s mentor, the famous sexologist, Robert Dickenson, MD, had “trained” King to keep child sex-abuse records.

Being a Dad is not about creating a life, for that demands little of your life. It’s about cultivating a life, for that demands all of your life.

reconnected. Similarly, there seemed to be three universal laws regarding the children of all families that transcended their cultural and sociological characteristics. ​​The children who work through the natural problems of maturing with the least amount of emotional or physical residue are those whose parents have made them least important to their own salvation. (Throughout this work, maturity will be defined as the willingness to take responsibility for one’s own emotional being and destiny.) ​​Children rarely succeed in rising above the maturity level of their parents, and this principle applies to all mentoring, healing, or administrative relationships. ​​Parents cannot produce change in a troubling child, no matter how caring, savvy, or intelligent they may be, until they become completely and totally fed up with their child’s behavior.

If you took on any lies about yourself when you were young, I wish a parent or a mentor had explained to you that other people's behavior had nothing to do with you.

If you took on any lies about yourself when you were young, I wish a parent or a mentor had explained to you that other people's behavior had nothing to do with you.

Toxic parents also sabotaged friendships that might have provided the child with confidence and other support. This also included relationships with close family members, coaches, or other mentors or teachers in the community.

More importantly, a child needs you to be energetically present with them, to play with them, to listen to them and to show them you care. Look them in the eyes and say, “You are so important to me.” Then with your actions demonstrate your reverence for them by spending time interacting with them and mentoring them. Even if they do something ‘wrong’ be gentle. They are just learning how to be in this world. If they ‘act out,’ it is always a call for love. If they make a ‘mistake,’ it is always a call for love. Teach them how to make better choices by mentoring them lovingly.

Children are mentoring their parents and older generations to actively begin to make major changes, in evidence of glaring environmental and social issues that previous generations have taken too long to address. They feel the urgency for change because they know the long-term consequences that affect their future. Be curious and listen to their passionate messages and educated calls-to-action. Let yourself be inspired to contribute to change as best you can.

I want to list here what I think were some of Jesus’ beliefs. The following are taken directly from my friend and longtime mentor Bart Tarman. There are twelve beliefs in his list, but Scripture shows us many others as well. Jesus believed that God is like a daddy. Jesus believed that faith is the key to opening every door—not correct thinking but childlike trust. Jesus believed in love. Jesus believed in humility. Jesus believed that dying is the key to living. Jesus believed that everyone is welcome. Jesus believed that the best life is lived in community. Jesus believed in being generous. Jesus believed that change comes from the inside out. Jesus believed in an upside-down Kingdom. An opposite world. If you’re rich, you’re poor. Be friends to enemies. Live to die. Be a child to be mature. Become empty to be full. Forgive to be forgiven. Jesus believed in empathy—treating others the way we want to be treated. Jesus believed in forgiveness, received and given.[1]

Christopher Westcott slowly drank his pint of ale at the Bird and Baby, as locals liked to call the Eagle and Child, and basked in the familiar smells- old wood bathed in lemon oil, braised beef, stale beer that spackled the bar. The pub was a popular mecca for those who admired J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and their entire literary giants they called Inklings. Christopher wasn't even close to being a literary giant nor was he a tourist, but he enjoyed writing and liked to feign himself one of the professors who might have basked in the lively readings and debates of the Inklings instead of just the aromas of this pub. Personally, he admired the writings of George MacDonald, the man C.S. Lewis considered his mentor. MacDonald was a writer and professor. And he was a frequently unemployed Scottish minister due to his views on God's love and grace. The man could speak the language of theologians at the same time he wrote books for children and readers of all ages whom he described as "child-like, whether they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five." MacDonald was a man of integrity who believed that God did not punish His children except to amend and heal them. A man who believed God's love and grace was available to all people- a direct affront to the Calvinists in his era.

work of seeking to be a mentor to your children, seeking to pass on a spiritual formation that creates a live faith, giving the training required to develop godly character, and creating a love for learning is absolutely one of the most profound works of our whole society and world.

do believe women! I am a feminist! I have been in the trenches, fighting this fight since I was a girl! How many young female artists have I mentored?” Meena retrieved the decanter from the bookshelf and poured a shot of whiskey into Inder’s glass, swirling it a few times before drinking it down. “You’re still a child, Kabir. You don’t know anything about the world.

Professionals don’t know what gives some people a resilient personality,” Dr. Russ said, pacing the classroom. “You can have four people go through something exceptionally traumatic, and one of those people will have a higher resiliency to coping. They won’t turn to drugs or rebel against society, they’ll seek the positive in any given situation. Now the interesting thing is the argument whether resiliency is nature or nurture. Are we born with it, or is it taught to us?” I hung on his every word, half expecting Midge to bound through the door and tell me she had told the professor my life story. He rattled on. “These children usually have strong mentors from a young age that they can build their strength on, they have some kind of talent or outlet they use to channel their frustrations or stress, and they’re intelligent.” He tapped the side of his head. “Scientists and psychologists have been studying the phenomena for decades. Just what makes one child so susceptible to crumbling under situations another one simply rises above?

Although a baby’s body is made from the shared DNA from its parents, the being that animates that body is a Divine soul gracing that particular family and community to be mentored lovingly until the day they are ready to step into the world on their own.

Gordon decided to try something similar with a group of twelve students who frequently got into trouble. He created a technology squad, giving them responsibility for the school’s expensive computerized lighting and sound systems. He bought them black outfits emblazoned with the words “Tech Squad” and their names spelled out in glow-in-the-dark letters. The kids had no preexisting technology skills, but they learned how to use the boards and move giant mechanical curtains. “At my last graduation at the middle school, the tech teacher called in sick,” Gordon recalled. “I called the Tech Squad, and this tiny, eleven-year-old sixth grader said, ‘Don’t worry about a thing, Mr. Gordon, we’ve got your back.’” His mother later came to the school in tears and shared that after years of hating school, he now ate, slept, and dreamed about it. None of the kids were referred to the main office after they joined the squad. Gordon told me, “Their chests got bigger and they became heroes among the kids instead of the class clowns.” Find that one thing that gives your child a sense of purpose, whether it’s singing, running, volunteering, peer mentoring, or creative writing. Kids who feel competent are more resistant to peer pressure.

It was Dr. McFarland, Fred’s mentor in child development from his graduate studies, who noted that Fred was more connected to his childhood than anyone else she knew, that he hadn’t “shed” the vestiges of childhood as most of us have.

Richard tells about how two of his other major mentors, Thomas Schelling and Kenneth Arrow (both Nobel Prize winners), sought simplicity. Schelling, for example, regularly employed everyday and easily grasped examples, such as a parent negotiating with a child, as an analogy to a much more complex situation, such as an international negotiation. A Schelling lecture often moved from a simple example, say a stop sign, to a riff on a dozen critical issues that involved a metaphorical stop sign. One element of Arrow’s genius was to see, and then distill, simple principles, where others saw only murky complexities.[11]

Young children are amazing mentors to experience present moment mindfulness. Follow their exploration and they will reveal the treasures and pleasures of mindfulness.

Meet them where they are." Though increasingly common, this phrase is a beacon of wisdom whose profound significance often lies dormant. It calls us to approach others with radical authenticity, shedding the weight of our assumptions and expectations. Whether in teaching, caregiving, or simply the quiet intimacy of a friendship, its message is universal. Every human relationship dances on the delicate axis of influence—parent to child, mentor to student, friend to friend—yet it’s too easy for influence to tip into judgment… To meet someone where they are is to disarm that judgment, replacing it with empathy and weaving a space for connection, trust, and understanding. To meet someone where they are is to step into their world as a guest, not a conqueror.