Mentor vs. Torment

I am currently training as a volunteer mentor for a specific group of people who need this kind of help. They are teaching us that mentoring is very different from counseling or giving advice. Even if the client asks me for advice, I cannot give it. For one, I am not qualified to do so, especially if it has something to do with their health. Secondly, giving advice, according to our trainors/teachers, is creating dependency, which is the last thing we want to do while helping people rebuild their lives.

Imagine, I can’t give advice to my prospective mentees even if they need it or they beg for it – only to guide them to make their own choices and decisions. As a mother and a domineering person (I have strong tendencies), this is the most challenging part of my volunteer work. Not only will I be learning to deal with different kinds of people (which a writer like me is not that used to anymore), I will also have to train and restrain myself from giving advice.

And then it struck me – will this work with my kids? If I will be able to master the art of mentoring (which means I can guide and motivate but not dictate), will I stand a better chance at maintaining a friendly relationship with my sons, especially during their teens? This has kept me thinking, really.

Until today, my husband and I still make most of the decisions for our sons. Of course, I know that we will soon cease to be almighty dad and mom because they will eventually live their own lives. Mothers out there, am I making sense? Or am I making it too obvious already that I can’t imagine myself a teen-ager’s mom?

I even have this dreadful image in my mind that if I choose to take on this parenting style, I might be very good at being a mentor but will be in continuous torment for not being able to decide for my kids at all. It is difficult to be a control freak and be a mom at the same time, isn’t it?