Positive Conversation Starters

TeamMates co-founder, Dr. Tom Osborne, included a quote in his weekly email a while ago that describes what school staff and mentors strive to do every time they interact with a student. He wrote,

“Mentoring can often be seen as finding and fixing faults in someone when it should be about helping young people celebrate what they do well and working with them to find situations in which they can do more of it.”

An easy way to start this conversation is to ask your mentee, “What is something you did over the summer that you’re proud of?” You may follow-up and ask, “How did you do that?” or “What makes that a proud moment?”

By starting this conversation, we can celebrate all that our mentees do well and point out the positive efforts that go into their proud achievements. Our role as mentors is to focus on the good and encourage our mentees to maximize on the things they already do well to achieve their goals.

Thank you for encouraging proud moments in your mentee!