February Mentor Message
In the work of mentorship, the intention to help can sometimes blur the line between what truly supports someone and what inadvertently hinders their growth. At Hand in Hand Family Mentorship, our mission is to provide guidance that fosters resilience, independence, and personal development. To achieve this, we must distinguish between healthy helping and hurtful helping — two approaches that have profoundly different outcomes for both mentors and mentees.
What Healthy Helping Looks Like
Healthy helping empowers mentees by encouraging them to take ownership of their challenges while providing the tools and support to navigate them. It involves:
Collaborative Problem-Solving: Engaging in brainstorming sessions with your mentee to identify obstacles and discuss solutions. This collaborative approach shows them that they have the capacity to contribute to their own success.
Resource Sharing: Offering resources such as articles, quotes, classes, or networking opportunities that are relevant to their situation. Sharing your own experiences adds authenticity and can inspire confidence in their ability to overcome challenges.
Compassionate Connection: Demonstrating care through thoughtful actions like invitations to spend time together, acts of service, or a purposeful gift. These gestures show your mentee they are valued without creating dependency.
Transparency and Vulnerability: Sharing your own struggles and how you’re working through them helps normalize the process of growth. It allows mentees to see that change is a universal experience, and everyone is a work in progress.
Broadening Perspectives: Helping mentees understand that their problems are not isolated to them. This perspective reduces feelings of isolation and fosters empathy, showing that life’s challenges are part of a shared human experience.
By practicing healthy helping, mentors guide mentees to see their own strength and potential while respecting their autonomy. The mentee learns to see solutions within their reach and develops the skills to navigate life’s complexities.
The Pitfalls of Hurtful Helping
While driven by good intentions, hurtful helping can lead to dependence, entitlement, and a lack of personal accountability. This approach often looks like:
Overstepping Boundaries: Taking on the role of a rescuer instead of providing the space for the mentee to solve their own problems. This displaces their responsibility for change and places it on your shoulders.
Listening Without Clarity: Being a passive listener without asking clarifying or insightful questions that encourage the mentee to reflect and take action. Without guidance, the mentee may feel stuck rather than supported.
Providing Handouts Instead of Tools: Offering financial or material assistance where it’s not necessary, rather than teaching the mentee how to find stability and build the character traits needed for long-term success.
Creating Dependency: Becoming the go-to solution for their problems can inculcate a sense of entitlement in the mentee. When this happens, the relationship risks becoming one-sided, and the mentee may not learn how to give back or build mutual respect.
Risking Relationship Breakdown: If the mentor can no longer meet the mentee’s escalating needs, or if boundaries are crossed, the relationship may deteriorate. This can leave both parties feeling frustrated and disconnected.
Why Healthy Helping Matters
The ultimate goal of mentorship is not to solve someone’s problems for them but to walk alongside them as they develop the skills and mindset to solve those problems themselves. For many mentees, especially those raised in dysfunctional or broken homes, this means learning for the first time how to:
Take responsibility for their choices.
Build resilience and character traits that weren’t fostered in childhood.
Understand that life’s difficulties don’t define them or dictate their future.
Rewrite their stories and create new, positive outcomes.
The greatest gift a mentor can give is consistency — being present through life’s ups and downs, offering encouragement, guidance, and a listening ear without enabling dependency. This kind of support helps mentees feel empowered to take control of their lives and embrace their own growth process.