Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Happy Thanksgiving! Stephen is flying solo today to give a short episode (everyone here at the You Can Mentor HQ wants you to spend your free time with family today) on some practicals for how you can go about cultivating gratitude beyond just enforcing "please" and "thank you". Let's press pause today and meditate on some things we're especially grateful for.
Show Notes
Happy Thanksgiving! Stephen is flying solo today to give a short episode (everyone here at the You Can Mentor HQ wants you to spend your free time with family today) on some practicals for how you can go about cultivating gratitude beyond just enforcing "please" and "thank you". Let's press pause today and meditate on some things we're especially grateful for.
Purchase the You Can Mentor book:
You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses
youcanmentor.com
Purchase the You Can Mentor book:
You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses
youcanmentor.com
Creators and Guests
What is You Can Mentor: A Christian Youth Mentoring Podcast?
You Can Mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring leaders through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples in their own community. We want to see Christian mentors thrive.
We want to hear from you! Send any mentoring questions to hello@youcanmentor.com, and we'll answer them on our podcast. We want to help you become the best possible mentor you can be. Also, if you are a mentoring organization, church, or non-profit, connect with us to join our mentoring network or to be spotlighted on our show.
Please find out more at www.youcanmentor.com or find us on social media. You will find more resources on our website to help equip and encourage mentors. We have downloadable resources, cohort opportunities, and an opportunity to build relationships with other Christian mentoring leaders.
You can mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships with kids from hard places in the name of Jesus. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:It is an interesting time we're living in. Dollar Tree has increased their prices to a dollar 25. What in the world? What is going on? Welcome back to the YouKu Mentor podcast.
Speaker 2:Things like this don't happen every year, and I'm sure that's something we will continue to say for the rest of our lives. Things are getting crazy. This is this is kind of like Romans 8 birth pangs unto the revealing of the sons of God. Look that one up. And I wonder if Jesus is coming back soon.
Speaker 2:Who knows? Who knows? No one knows the epochs or days or seasons. But, Jesus, we trust you. We love you.
Speaker 2:Listeners, it's Thanksgiving, Thursday. Thanksgiving Thursday. What do you guys do on Thanksgiving? I'm sure you watch football. I'm sure you know, in my family, particularly at my grandma's house, there are a bunch of VHS tapes and something we will I mean, for probably a decade of my life, the one VHS tape that came to the forefront on Thanksgiving was always Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, And it was like the live action version, not a cartoon, where you have, like, a 4 foot tall Master Splinter teaching the ninjas their crafts.
Speaker 2:What a great mentor, master Splinter. You know, I asked Zach for a long time if we could do a series on movie mentors, and I think maybe just just even just once, every Thanksgiving, maybe I'll mention a movie mentor like Master Splinter. I mean, I can't think of a better mentor other than Jesus who raised up James, Peter, John, Bartholomew, Matthew, Mark, you know, those guys that we remember who kind of started Christianity in his name. But Master Splinter had Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo. I mean, those guys were insane.
Speaker 2:Whether it was nunchucks or just a stick. He taught them a craft. He helped them, take out the bad guy. And, you know, I don't even remember what the bad guy's name was, and I'm gonna get a lot of flack for that. And I understand.
Speaker 2:What was the guy's name? Oh, gosh. Oh, I don't know. But he had, like, forks for hands or something. And, I mean, I remember playing the video game where it was like side scroll is amazing.
Speaker 2:I am I am so grateful for my childhood. Just thinking about this memory of this random movie that we would pop in every year for some reason and watch this mentor train these ninjas in how to wage war and eat pizza. I hope you have memories like that. I hope when you come into Thanksgiving, you're looking back and you're reminded of the beauty of life, the things that that that God has allowed in your life and those things that are good. I I know we all have trauma and difficulty and probably maybe some pent up anger and and difficult relationships when it comes to hanging out with family, but can we just cling to what is good, abort what is evil, cling to what is good, chew the meat, spit out the bones, and be grateful.
Speaker 2:Be grateful what for what we've been given, for what we have, and what we can give. Today, really, what I wanna talk about is gratitude, thankfulness, not just in remembrance, but how do we cultivate gratitude and thankfulness in our mentor relationships? And I I have one thought that I want to kinda put before you. This will be a short episode. I I wanna give you more time to spend with your family, and I don't expect that everybody's gonna listen to our podcast on Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2:Let's be real. But I've been reading a study from Berkeley on how to develop gratitude in children. And I think this may be true for your kids or your mentor your mentee. You know, something that we all focus on when it comes to kids being grateful is, like, they receive something and what do you say? You say, hey.
Speaker 2:You need to say thank you. And I wanna say, like, that is that is a good practice. Kids need to know how to say thank you. They need manners. They need how to they need to know how to interact in spaces where they receive something.
Speaker 2:What how do you respond? What are you supposed to do? And expressing appreciation is a skill. It is a learned skill. Somebody has to teach you that.
Speaker 2:And so I don't wanna minimize the teaching of what you do when you receive something. But the study that I just read kinda connects that if if that's all we teach our kids is what to do to express appreciation, we're cutting their legs out from under them. When it comes to gratitude, really, the 4 main practices for cultivating gratitude are what what do you notice in your life you can be grateful for, how do you think about what you've been given, How does what you've received make you feel? And then what do you do to express appreciation? And so notice, think, feel, and do.
Speaker 2:I think that's a great framework for how to approach gratitude, teaching gratitude to your mentee. Maybe you could ask, hey, what what are you noticing in your life? What are you remembering? Not noticing is like remembering or seeing it. You know, there's scriptures that talk about I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.
Speaker 2:I will see the goodness of god in the land of the living. In in a way, there's, like, prophetic noticing, and then there's there's actual you're you're sensing it. You're seeing it. I I think that us helping our mentees notice things that they can be grateful for, things that they have, things that I think gratitude kinda focuses you in on what you have, not what you lack. And I think that's really important, especially when it comes to youth mentoring relationships where, maybe your mentee doesn't have as much as you or your kids.
Speaker 2:They still have something to be grateful for. Every kid has something to be grateful for. And so how can you help them notice those things and call them out? And then second, think think about why we've been given these things. I think that's a great practice, of just saying, you know what?
Speaker 2:Let's let's ask the question. Hey. Why do I have this? And or or why did I receive this? Why did someone give this to me?
Speaker 2:Does this mean that I'm valuable? Does this mean that I'm worth something? Is there an expectation that I'm supposed to give something back, or is this just someone expressing their love for me? Helping kids understand that they're loved and and that regardless of what they received, thinking about why someone gave me this. Why did they give me do they love me?
Speaker 2:Do they care for me? Helping kids unpack why they're getting something, I think, is is really cool. So maybe with your mentee, if you take them out to lunch, you could probably ask them the question. Hey. Do you know why I'm getting lunch with you today?
Speaker 2:Do you know why I'm spending time with you? It's because I love you. It's because I like you. You're so fun to hang out with. You unpacking that and helping them understand and have a greater appreciation for how to think about you as their mentor is huge.
Speaker 2:So you just asking those questions. Hey. Do you know why I'm doing this? And you can spell it out. You can tell them why, and that's gonna help them grow in appreciation.
Speaker 2:The third one is feel. How does that make you feel when when you get something or when you have something? What gifts make you feel happy? I think attaching positive feelings and emotions to the things that we have or receive are are fostering gratitude within the life of the child. And so help helping kids express their feelings really does develop their social emotional life.
Speaker 2:So so think about how how to pull out. How does it how does it make you feel when I gave you that high five? How does it make you feel when I I come to your basketball games? How does it make you feel when, you know, I I show up and, you you know, kneel down and give you a hug. Really, really help kids express their feelings of how how your mentor relationship makes them feel.
Speaker 2:And then the last one is what we're used to doing is do. It's coaching. It's it's saying, hey. You need to say thank you. Use manners when it comes to receiving something from someone.
Speaker 2:This is usually the place that we're all pretty good at prompting children to express their gratitude. But if they don't have the noticing, the thinking, and the feeling, then they're just going through the motions, which is exactly what every parent would say is that they don't want their kid to express appreciation or gratitude, but it just be up to the bar of manners. They want kids to actually feel grateful, to have appreciation. And so the the way for us to cultivate that is to focus on the others. Focus on helping them to notice things to be grateful for.
Speaker 2:Asking them questions to help them think about why they are grateful and why they should be grateful, and then asking them how they feel. Those are 4 kinda great ways for you to go deeper in in motivating gratitude within the life of your men t. And and and I think that's for anybody. That's for a parent. That's for a mentor.
Speaker 2:I I really encourage you to to think about how can you cultivate gratitude in a different way than just, you know, prompting, hey. You need to say thank you. I just think that's really helpful for me. I did wanna share a story from this last summer. I took my mentee on a camping trip.
Speaker 2:We were doing this rite of passage. I mean, it was ridiculous, ridiculously difficult. I mean, we hiked miles upon miles up mountains in the rain, in the dark. I mean, it it was it was one of the most excruciating experiences of my life. And one night, we were all opening up sharing stories about our past and and about things that we're thankful for.
Speaker 2:And my mentee for the first time I mean, I've I've been mentoring him for 6 years. He just spoke up, and he said, you know what? I've never told Steven thank you. I've never told him thank you for mentoring me. I've never said thank you.
Speaker 2:He just kept saying it. And and you could tell that he was really growing in that moment, a deep sense of appreciation for, holy cow, this guy has been showing up in my life for 6 years. He doesn't have to be here. He's out on this hiking trip for me. He's he's shown up in my life.
Speaker 2:He's he's taken me out to lunch. He's asked me all these questions. He's entered into my world for me. And in that that very moment, he was beginning to articulate and recognize and notice and feel all of that stuff. And and regardless of if he ever did it, if he ever said thank you, seeing that moment was enough for me.
Speaker 2:Seeing him process, a deep sense of gratitude for what he had received, I think was was the most meaningful thing for me in our mentoring relationship. I saw this girl today at the pediatrician. We walked in. I'm sitting on the ground. My baby girl, Maren, she was born 4 days ago.
Speaker 2:I am sitting in the waiting room, and this girl walks in and she says, hey. I really like your baby. And I was like, wow. I thank you. I really like my baby too.
Speaker 2:She looks over to a a little girl, and she says, hey. I really love your braids. And the girl didn't say anything because she was 3 years old. But she looked to the next girl. She said, hey.
Speaker 2:I really like that necklace. Where did you get that necklace? And I was like, good night. Who who is parenting this child who's just recognizing all of these things that that aren't even hers, that she's expressing in a sense gratitude for. She's like, hey.
Speaker 2:I like that. I love that. I want that. I was just blown away. And and I mean, it cultivated conversations among these children in this waiting room who are all up for a checkup or sick, like, not in a good mood.
Speaker 2:And I was just like, man, this parent must be doing something different when it comes to the way that they are raising their child. And so I would suspect that this parent was cultivating this this kind of environment of noticing things to be grateful for, making compliments, and broaching conversations through compliments, and getting getting into people's world by noticing something about them, not just noticing something about themselves. That they they really did express how those things made them feel. Like, they I mean, just everybody in the room felt appreciated in some way that that this person, this little 6 year old girl was making everyone feel seen and acknowledged in a room that, quite honestly, if you've ever been in waiting rooms, the only thing you're doing is waiting. There's probably some weird video about a lawyer trying to get you engaged with this meningitis kind of court case or something.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm talking about. It's not necessarily the most inviting environment, and this girl just kinda opened up the room for us all to be grateful for what we had. I had a baby. That girl had braids. This girl had a necklace, and we had a friend.
Speaker 2:We had a friend who was calling that stuff out. And so I just want to encourage you to to take something away from from what I just shared. Let's be that girl who who walks into a room. Maybe you're walking into a room with your mentee and they're shut down, they're distressed, they're not opening up, maybe you could say something. Hey.
Speaker 2:I really like your shirt. Where did you get that shirt? Hey. I really like your sunglasses. Those are awesome sunglasses.
Speaker 2:I wish I had a pair of those. Hey. I love your shoes. Man, what are those? But in a in a positive sense, not a negative sense.
Speaker 2:I I think that can create an opportunity for your mentee to start noticing something in themselves that they have. Help them start to think about, hey. Who gave you those? So then they can start thinking, oh, my mom gave me these. Like, why did my mom give me these?
Speaker 2:That makes me feel so great that my mom gave me these shoes that other people think are cool. And then I I just think that's gonna cultivate something in your mentee beyond just the practicals of giving them manners. I hope that encourages you. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you guys have a happy Thanksgiving. Would love to pray for you.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, just just thank you for being a part of the You Can Mentor family. It has been an incredible journey watching new hosts jump on, just watching everyone who's listening, leaving comments, reviews, and emails. I mean, organizations who are who are being impacted by just random, honestly, not very well guided conversations about mentoring kids from hard places in the name of Jesus. And the reason it's impactful is because it matters. It matters what we're doing.
Speaker 2:And I'm so grateful to have you along in the journey. So, Father, I bless everyone listening today, and I pray that you'd help us to notice that things that you've given us, the father of lights who only gives good gifts. We're grateful, Lord, and ask that you would open our eyes to see the goodness of the Lord God that you would help us to think to dwell on God. What is good, what is honorable, what is worthy of praise and open up our minds to recognize, God, how much we've received and who we've received it from and why we've received it. And I pray you'd help us express our emotions, our gladness, our joy, and the the feeling of of gratitude.
Speaker 2:And I and I pray that you would teach us the way in which we should go and that we would not depart from it. So I pray for our mentors and our mentees in the name of Jesus that they would cultivate gratitude in everyday moments. And the next time they get together, would would something from today's podcast be built upon? In Jesus' name. Amen.
Speaker 2:Love you guys.