Children need positive role models in their lives. They often turn to these people that they look up to for advice and guidance. College students make great mentors for elementary, junior high and high school students.
College Tutors of Michigan provides jobs where being a mentor is required, yet simple. Being a nanny or tutor in the life of a child or teen has a ton of benefits, not just for your mentee, but also for you as a mentor. Why become a mentor to a child or teen? Here’s why.
Build Relationships
When you are caring for a child or tutoring them, you will begin to build a relationship with the children and their family. By making that connection, you are building your network of references for future jobs while making friends in your college community.
More often than not, the child or children you are working with will think you are way cooler than mom and dad. By serving as a mentor, you are a role model in their lives. The student you are tutoring might hate studying when mom and dad reference it. But if you share with your mentee how difficult your last test was, they know you understand how they feel when they are studying for their tests. This makes studying and school seem a little bit cooler. As a nanny or tutor, you can share your educational goals and extra-curricular activities with them to encourage their own growth and involvement.
Improve Your Skills
Being a mentor also helps build your skill set. When dealing directly with your mentee, you are building your listening, organizational and communication skills. Empathy, patience and creativity are all required characteristics when dealing with kids, teens and preteens, so you will gain experience utilizing these, too. The experiences that you have with your mentee will give you stories and examples that you can use when interviewing for jobs in the future.
For example, maybe you were tutoring a young man that couldn’t distinguish the difference between right, isosceles and scalene triangles. You know, from building a relationship with him that he loves basketball. Instead of showing him the different types of triangles on paper, you bring him to the basketball court and explain them visually with cones and shot patterns.
When working with teens and kids, you often are forced to adapt and quickly. These are all skills that are very applicable to any profession.
Teach Others
When you are tutoring or nannying, there are tons of opportunities for you to impact the life of a child by teaching them something. It can be something as simple as teaching a child how to say please and thank you or something huge like helping a student that struggles with math learn their times tables.
Either way, you celebrate these victories together and improve their lives by spending time with them. You might be surprised that they teach you things, too.
Becoming a mentor is easy if you become a nanny or tutor. For more information about openings in Ann Arbor or the surrounding communities, please visit our website.
