How Do You Learn To Be A Better Mentor/Supervisor To Teenagers?
I think you’ve probably touched on something with recognizing the difference between your experience with small children and the older children you’re dealing with now. With older children, who have formed some critical thinking of their own, I think it really helps to make it clear why what you’re putting them through is important. They’re like slightly hornier, less rational versions of you, and so they want to know if this is a waste of their time. To many, this program is probably the equivalent of your sitting through a meeting that keeps you from actual work. So, is what you’re putting them through valuable or a waste of time? You need to make it valuable. Time is money (or something of equally great value), and even teenagers don’t want to waste it, in general, and they get grumpy and belligerent if they do. I’m 22, and I remember as a teenager I had to go through a few “character counts” and “leadership” classes/programs. The concepts in those classes still make me want to pluc
Hi OP; I work with teenagers and have a few ideas that have been helpful. It helps to remember that they’re genetically programmed at this stage to question authority, so don’t take it personally. They’re used to engaging in arguments to get what they want (and often in other settings, if they’re annoying/shrill/obnoxious enough, they win). Having said that, positive reinforcement is surprisingly effective. If you asked most teens, they would tell you that they rarely receive kudos for doing the right thing and get a lot more attention for doing things wrong. What works for me is this: I tell (and show) my kids incredibly simple rules to be followed and more importantly, goals to achieve, AND tell them how much their individual input is needed. Rules perhaps can’t be changed, but their creativity and problem solving is needed to get the job done in a way that excites them. Do they want to teach the kids to draw/sing/dance? Do they like reading scary stories aloud? Let them go for it an
You’re stuck with kids who are at a difficult age. I’m going to suggest that you don’t engage in debates about ipods, evaluations, or volunteering hours. Every time you do that, you reinforce the behavior. If you are the boss, then you set reasonable boundaries and performance metrics. That doesn’t mean that you should act like a jerk, in fact, quite the contrary. When they do things well, be lavish with praise and reward. If they start whining about volunteer hours, then you cut off that conversation by handing out more work. Personally, I think that carrot will get you more than stick, but sometimes stick is needed too. Especially if you’ve got people who don’t understand that work is not about doing what you want. At 14, I’d expect them to have lots of misunderstandings about working. Model good behavior for them. Use praise when you can and consequences when you can’t. One of the kindest things you can do is teach these kids that jobs reward performance not whining. If they learn t
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I welcome any further suggestions. Fwiw this camp is a little unique in its hierarchy in that most of the head staff (I am considered ‘head staff’ myself) are working professionals (as am I) of adult age (I am early 30s and there are quite a few who are older than me). We get decent money (I get a little less than what I make during the school year). Under us, there are programming staff who are generally college students (one of these is my assistant) who get paid considerably less, and then there are the worker bee counselors who take little kids around to all the activities and get a pittance. So the age and experience gap between me and these teenagers is considerable…
They would question us about things which were not within our power, for example, why they do not get volunteering hours for this, which is up to their program director. When we referred them back to her… How accessible was the information you gave concerning the program director? If you just gave a name or title, that might not be enough to get them off your back. Did you provide her email address? This is how many teens would be willing and most likely to communicate. Their question seems like a good one, especially if they aren’t getting payment (or “good” payment) for their work. Once again, there has to be value in this for them. That may not be directly in your hands, but so long as they feel they or their work is undervalued, they’re going to be vocal about it to someone, even if it’s the wrong someone. One of them was quite freaked out about getting an evaluation…I had to explain to him that everyone…gets evaluations because…but he was not reassured. He was quite defens
