“My village fell apart”: Parents' Views on Seeking Informal Mentoring Relationships for Their Children

• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Author: Lindsey M. Weiler,Angela Keyzers,Meredith Scafe,Amber Anderson,Timothy A. Cavell
• Date: 01 December 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12436

L M. W  A KUniversity of Minnesota

M SUniversity of Arkansas

A AUniversity of Minnesota

T A. CUniversity of Arkansas

“My village fell apart”: Parents’ Views on Seeking

Informal Mentoring Relationships for Their Children

Objective: To assess parents’ perceptions of

barriers and facilitators to promoting informal

mentoring relationships for their children with

caring adults in their existing social network.

Background: Supportive relationships with

nonparental adults are critical to positive youth

development, social capital, healthy living, and

upward mobility, but not all children experi-

ence such relationships. Because parents are

the primary gatekeepers to children’s social

networks, we presumed that parents could play

a role in shaping children’s informal mentoring

relationships.

Method: We conducted eight focus groups

and used a semistructured interview to ask

participants about mentoring and potential

barriers or facilitators to connecting children

with informal mentors. Participants were 55

parents/caregivers (Mage =41.43years;96.4%

female; 77.9% unmarried).

Results: Parents were open to the involvement

of nonparental adults in children’s lives, but

they differed in the extent to which their social

network offered viable mentor candidates. Other

barriers included feeling too proud to ask for

University of Minnesota, 1985 Buford Avenue,St. Paul, MN

55108 (lmweiler@umn.edu).

Key Words: children, parenthood, parenting,social support

networks, youth mentoring.

help and concerns that informal mentors would

be unsafe or inconsistent. Facilitative factors

included appreciating the benets of informal

mentoring relationships, feeling connected to

one’s community, and being able and willing to

ask for help in the face of doubt or fear.

Conclusion: Parents were generally positive

about children receiving support from infor-

mal mentors and acknowledged the potential

role they could play in forming those connec-

tions; they also recognized potential barriers to

making those connections.

Implications: Parents’ perception about their

“village” suggests the need to develop and eval-

uate programs that help parents connect chil-

dren with supportive informal mentors.

Strong social support networks are critical to

positive youth development, social capital, and

upward mobility (DuBois & Silverthorn, 2005;

Putnam, 2015; Rhodes, Spencer, Keller, Liang,

& Noam, 2006). For many youth, that network

includes nonparental adult mentors who can

provide a range of supports (Van Dam etal.,

2018; Varga & Zaff, 2017). Adult mentors

can be role models, sources of guidance and

inspiration, and bridges to resources that would

otherwise be unavailable. Research has shown

that supportive mentoring relationships can add

to youth’s positive socioemotional, behavioral,

Family Relations 69 (December 2020): 983–995983

DOI:10.1111/fare.12436