Family Relationships & Respect

“Mentored youth indicated improved family relations, measured by gains in trust between parent and child during the study period.”

—Mentoring Initiatives: An Overview of Youth Mentoring, Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, http://www.nationalfamilies.org/parents/mentor.pdf

“…benefits of mentoring relationships have been indicated to accrue in part through improvements in youths’ perceptions of their parental relationships as well as their relationships with peers and other adults in their social networks (Rhodes, Reddy, & Grossman, 2005; Rhodes et al., 2000).”

—Mentoring Relationships and Programs for Youth, Rhodes & DuBois, http://www.rhodeslab.org/files/RHODESDUBOISCURRENTDIRECTIONS.pdf

“Whenever possible, involving parents also seems to increase effectiveness. Improvements in parental relationships were found to mediate positive effects on self-worth, school value, and grades for BBBS youth (Rhodes, Grossman, & Resch, 2000)”

—A Review of Mentoring Studies and Websites: A Report for the Melissa Institute for the Prevention and Treatment of Violence – Hayashi and O’Donnell, U of Hawaii, http://www.melissainstitute.org/documents/TMI_Mentoring_Report51-2.pdf

“Although there is no substitute for a deeply caring parent, young people can still thrive if some responsible person or group steps in to meet their needs.”

—Great Transitions: Preparing Adolescents for a New Century, Carnegie Corporation of new York, 1996, https://www.carnegie.org/media/filer_public/a4/d3/a4d397ae-74ea-4318-81f4-73ee6832d943/ccny_report_1995_transitions.pdf

“Mentors may bolster the protective effects of parental relationships, which are often strained among youth who are referred to relationship-based interventions (Freedman, 1995,; Styles & Morrow, 1995; Tierney, Grossman, & Resch, 1995)… Mentors may challenge negative views that adolescents hold of themselves or of relationships with adults and demonstrate that positive caring relationships with adults are possible. The helping relationship can thus become a “corrective experience” for those adolescents who may have experienced unsatisfactory relationships with their parents (Olds, Kitzman, Cole & Robinson, 1997). This experience can then generalize, thereby enabling adolescents to perceive their proximal relationships as more forthcoming and helpful (Coble, Gantt, & Mallinckrodt, 1996; Fairburn, 1952; Main, Kaplan & Cassidy, 1985).”

—Agents of Change: Pathway through Which Mentoring Relationships Influence Adolescents’ Academic Adjustment, Rhodes, Grossman, Resch (2000), http://www.rhodeslab.org/files/agents.pdf