How to make my child mentoring efforts more effective?

justonegirl — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 15:56:32 -0800

What do you do when your child-mentoring efforts seem to be amounting to nothing? (Follow-up to this question.) As described in the other linked question, I participate in a one-on-one child mentoring program and have been for nearly four years now. For the duration of that time, I’ve been matched with “Sarah,” who is now 11 years old, and I care for her very deeply.

I had a long post all typed out and ready to go, with plenty of background information on what has become a pretty horrible situation as far as her schooling and socialization. However, I’m hoping not to turn off anyone who may be willing to provide input, so I’ll try to keep this short.

I’ve just found out that Sarah has about a 90% chance of failing the sixth grade (we’ll know later this week). I’m devastated, as my husband and I have paid for private tutoring for the past three school years and done just about everything we can think of to try to improve her school performance. She just doesn’t have any structure at home to back up our efforts (such as any expectation from Mom that she does her homework or turns in major projects), and while Sarah is a great kid, she doesn’t have the quickness or the inherent motivation to succeed on her own. Mom doesn’t seem to mind that Sarah’s failing; hell, she’s already doing better than her brother, who is going to have to repeat eighth grade for a third time next year, and besides, everything is the school’s fault anyway.

My husband wants to cut the tutoring, and I’ve come to agree – we’ve already sunken over $6K into it, we can’t afford more, and I can’t explain to the tutor even one more week why Sarah isn’t following through with any of the study strategies they’ve devised or why her grades are still in the toilet. I don’t want to give up on Sarah, however. The only thing I can think of is to try to sit down one-on-one with her mom and explain how important it is to me that Sarah succeed in school, and offer to do whatever else I can to help her accomplish that, whether it be seeing Sarah daily (a stretch for me, since I have a young baby now), getting involved directly with Sarah’s teachers, etc. I have no idea what her mom will say to this, since she’s the most defensive, excuse-making, “the world is against me” person I’ve ever met. I also know that no further efforts on my part are going to work if Mom doesn’t get on board completely and provide some kind of reinforcement at home.

I realize the mentoring program I’m in was never intended to encompass this increased level of involvement – the program requirement is to see a kid twice a month for something like playing catch in the park or seeing a movie. Considering the way our relationship has evolved, however, I can’t see the value in reverting to that type of arrangement. Sarah has plenty of “fun” in her life – in fact, I get the impression that her life is pretty much all fun except for the few hours a week she’s with her tutor and me. Besides, how can I compete in the fun department when Mom takes her to get acrylic nails, sets up a “sexxii” MySpace page for her, and downloads ringtones for her daughter’s cell phone of songs like “I’m in Love with a Stripper?”

If anyone has any suggestions on how to approach the situation with her mom in order to achieve the best chance of helping Sarah do better in school, I’d really appreciate it. General suggestions on how to improve a child-mentoring situation would also be great. I really don’t want to quit the program and cut my losses (as silly as that might seem to some), though, so if you have advice to offer other than that, thanks in advance.

How can I help a child who isn't mine?

justonegirl — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 18:17:41 -0800

How can I help a child who isn’t mine? For a little over two years, I’ve been involved in a nationally-known child mentoring program and have been matched with an amazing little girl who is now 10 and in the fifth grade (I’ll call her Sarah here). Considering some of the bad stories I’ve heard from others regarding this program, my experience has been truly phenomenal.

Sarah is such a wonderful child – she’s bright, thoughtful, outgoing, funny, and genuinely grateful for everything that is done for her. My husband and I absolutely adore her.

The problem is, Sarah’s home life seems like it’s destroying her future, and it’s driving me crazy.

She lives with her mom, older brother (13) and younger sister (7), and her grandparents. Dad is rarely in the picture. Mom is a real piece of work. Suffice it to say, she wouldn’t be out of place on an episode of Springer. The grandparents provide a little bit more stability, but not much – one has health problems, the other speaks very little English (and Sarah doesn’t speak their native language).

I’ve observed or been informed by Sarah of several troubling issues. She stays up until all hours of the night (sometimes until 2 or 3 a.m., even on school nights); she doesn’t eat well (no breakfast, school vending machine crap for lunch, McDonald’s or Taco Bell for dinner); she isn’t participating in any after-school activities and seems to get no encouragement as far as reading, sports, or anything productive; she watches horrifically inappropriate things (Thirteen. Scary Movie. Made-for-cable films about subjects like kidnapping and rape and murder.) and listens to very sexually-oriented music. Mom won’t help her with her homework – she claims she doesn’t understand it, in spite of having a perfectly legitimate clerical-type job (and hello? The assignments are designed for a 10-year-old!), yet she will get Sarah’s ears pierced 5 times and take her to get acrylic fake nails. In the past, Sarah’s appearance has been problematic: inadequate hygiene, for example, and at one point her clothes were in such horrific disrepair (not fitting, holes the size of her head) that my husband and I bought her and her siblings winter wardrobes for Christmas. Her teacher has informed me that Sarah shows up for school crying in the morning and is so distracted and overwhelmed with personal dramas (pertaining mostly to her family issues) that she can’t focus on her work. Oh, and according to the teacher, Sarah is now running with the “fast” girls at school.

School has been an issue since I’ve known her. She was failing the third grade and her teacher told me she only promoted her to fourth because Sarah was already too socially mature for her classmates. Starting the next school year, my husband and I arranged for Sarah to receive weekly tutoring at our home, and we have continued to fund that to this day. Sarah was tested for learning disabilities last year and was found to have a low-level language impairment. Specifically, she has great difficulty reading and spelling. Her academic troubles have led her to seek out validation in other areas – mostly in being a social butterfly and the center of all the schoolyard soap operas. She gets in trouble on a daily basis for talking in class.

So, after this lengthy non-question, I’ll get to the point. I am desperately concerned that the lack of sleep and nourishment and hygiene is going to negatively affect her health. I’m equally concerned that the lack of school success, meaningful activities, personal space and individualized attention will only end up making the rebellious crowd and related activities that much more attractive to her. In a nutshell, I’m terrified she’ll end up pregnant and a dropout before the age of 16. And frighteningly, that wouldn’t be that uncommon in her family’s circle.

My husband and I want to take her in and raise her. Realizing that’s probably an impossibility, I’d like some other, meaningful ways to influence this child’s life and mitigate some of the horrible influences she’s exposed to. I know that the once-weekly tutoring sessions (which we always follow with some homework help, a homemade family-style dinner and a game) are good for her, but they aren’t enough to un-do all the other six and a half days a week.

I feel desperate for a solution here. The teacher seems to have pretty much written off Sarah (and her pain-in-the-ass mom) as a lost cause. The caseworkers from the mentoring program can’t really do much, because it isn’t a case of child abuse, plus since the program is voluntary they aim to keep the kids in it (and a pissed-off parent put on the defensive isn’t likely to let their kids stay involved). And Mom definitely is defensive, and has an excuse for everything. She’s also told me before that Sarah is a “little shit,” is bad and evil, and that my husband and I can keep her (unfortunately, though, she hasn’t made that wisecrack since we’ve decided we would in fact like to do just that).

Any ideas, thoughts, etc. would be deeply appreciated. I’m not looking for any reassurance that we’re doing stuff right; rather, I’m hoping for suggestions on how we can do more to ensure she receives the care and attention that every child deserves.

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