Defining Relationships

Hello Everyone!
This week’s class was very fun and interesting. To start off class Nick and Kelly did a wonderful job presenting their chapter and topic. I thought the activity they did was very fun and interesting. It was great to hear the other group’s definitions of the words that were brought up in the chapter. My group was assigned connecting link and we thought it meant connecting students to clubs, organizations, tutors, etc. if they have questions you can link them to the place they can find the correct answer. I thought this chapter was a great one to read about the responsibilities of becoming a peer mentor. The most important thing from the chapter is to make the boundary between the mentors and the mentees, you want them to respect you from the start and you want to be able to help them with the transition but you also have to remember you are their to mentor them not to become best friends with them.
Deb and Joeys presentation of their chapter was great! I thought the activities where we had to act out the skits of the different situations that may arise and I would not have been able to act but those who volunteered did a great job. I thought it was very interesting to see what everyone else would do in certain situations because I wouldn’t have known what I should have done in those situations. I thought Joey and Greg did a fabulous job of acting out their skit of being at a party and having an underage mentee approach them and show a little "crush." The skits were a good thing to do during class because they got everyone thinking about all the different possibilities that could happen when in the role of a peer mentor and all the correct things that you should do. In the situations that we talked about I believe the best option is to completely remove yourself from the situation and just save yourself from having to deal with it.
I found the Strategies the book suggested on page 62 to be very good strategies to keep in mind when being a peer mentor I think these all help with building the trust between you and your mentees when you are available to help them and are willing to do the best you can to help them succeed but at the same time you have the boundaries between you and them. I thought Anthony and Chelsee brought up a great point when we were discussing boundaries in class if a mentee were to ask you to meet outside of class to talk about personal issues that it would be a great idea to bring your co-leader with you so it becomes less personal between you and the mentee and it involves more people that are their to help.
I hope everyone has a great week! Happy Valentines Day!!
See you Tuesday!
Jenna