A Guide to Effectively Mentor Boys to Become Men of Integrity

By Sophia Elizabeth Lambert

Social services are rewarding yet can be challenging if we are not knowledgeable on how to offer that service effectively. This book provides information to assist mentors of boys with vital tools needed to guide them and efficiently mentor with a biblical worldview. Sophia Elizabeth shares her knowledge gained from counseling, mentoring, and observing young men to help you chart the unfamiliar course. This guide takes the reader from the concept and introductory stage of a group through the intricacies of building the bloc. There are overviews that will make you understand the various effects and impacts on young men. This guide will assist you in making a difference in a young man's life.Social services are rewarding yet can be challenging if we are not knowledgeable on how to offer that service effectively. This book provides information to assist mentors of boys with vital tools needed to guide them and efficiently mentor with a biblical worldview. Sophia Elizabeth shares her knowledge gained from counseling, mentoring, and observing young men to help you chart the unfamiliar course. This guide takes the reader from the concept and introductory stage of a group through the intricacies of building the bloc. There are overviews that will make you understand the various effects and impacts on young men. This guide will assist you in making a difference in a young man's life.Social services are rewarding yet can be challenging if we are not knowledgeable on how to offer that service effectively. This book provides information to assist mentors of boys with vital tools needed to guide them and efficiently mentor with a biblical worldview. Sophia Elizabeth shares her knowledge gained from counseling, mentoring, and observing young men to help you chart the unfamiliar course. This guide takes the reader from the concept and introductory stage of a group through the intricacies of building the bloc. There are overviews that will make you understand the various effects and impacts on young men. This guide will assist you in making a difference in a young man's life.Social services are rewarding yet can be challenging if we are not knowledgeable on how to offer that service effectively. This book provides information to assist mentors of boys with vital tools needed to guide them and efficiently mentor with a biblical worldview. Sophia Elizabeth shares her knowledge gained from counseling, mentoring, and observing young men to help you chart the unfamiliar course. This guide takes the reader from the concept and introductory stage of a group through the intricacies of building the bloc. There are overviews that will make you understand the various effects and impacts on young men. This guide will assist you in making a difference in a young man's life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sophia Elizabeth Lambert
• Release date: Jan 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9789769652552

Sophia Elizabeth Lambert

Sophia Elizabeth Lambert is a Jamaican author who has published four books titled Hope Deferred, Rise Up: Mentoring Boys to Become Men of Integrity, Esperanza Aplazada, and A Guide to Effectively Mentor Boys to Become Men of Integrity.                                                    She is passionate about mentoring boys into productive young men and has used her counselling skills in mentoring some of them. Her desire to see boys and young men become their best has propelled her to become the content creator for the series on Mentoring Boys to Become Men of Integrity on the YouTube Channel, Sophia Elizabeth Lambert. Her intention is to inspire others to help change a young man's future history today. As an author and motivational speaker, she seeks to challenge, refresh, and restore hearts.

Book preview

Guide 1

Do you have a passion to mentor boys to young men?

Have you ever visualized yourself encouraging and pouring into younger men the lessons you’ve learned from your life experiences? Do you desire to create a space for them to hang out? I mean, talking about life’s challenges, issues, concerns, and being aware of the limited opportunities that are there for them to do so? Do you care about them? Is it your desire to guide and encourage them to become the best men that they can be so they can be equipped to fulfill their purpose? Do you seek opportunities to encourage boys to transition to men while they thrive in all their endeavors? Do you motivate them to discipline themselves so they can develop the characteristics of men of integrity? If that sounds like you, then the noble service of mentoring boys to young men is calling you. You are needed to invest today so that our societies can reap the benefits later. Your investment in the future carries such a great value that you’ll never know the impact you will make. If you’re reading this book, then chances are there’s already an interest in mentoring someone. Therefore, accept the challenge of your heart because future destinies await your investments.

To support our boys’ transition to men, we need wholesome communities that will afford them the space where they can bond and be authentic with others. They need to be relaxed about opening up on what matters to them and their struggles. It should be an environment where they feel safe and secure, non-judgmental, and will help them understand their developmental processes. They must be aware they are valued, accepted, and loved regardless of color, class, or creed.

Mentoring is needed for our younger men and boys, and you have the ability to create the opportunity that will break some destructive cycles. The need is there, but volunteers are required to meet that demand for our boys turning men, so they can converge for a purpose that appears internal but affects them externally. However, can the narrative change for them unless someone steps up to the plate to mentor and offer them support, guidance, and friendship? They all need it, but not all can find the needed help. As more men of repute buy into the vision to mentor our younger males, only then can we see a decline in our young men going to prisons in future decades. We certainly won’t see them repeating the same mistakes as previous generations because the wisdom gained by their seniors would have been imparted to them.

Making a positive impact isn’t hard, but it has to be deliberately geared towards influencing our young people. Listening to men, I’ve realized that they would welcome such an opportunity, but we need to enable the coming together and the mentorship. With joint efforts, we can have many more mentorship groups worldwide intending to make a difference in their lives. I am tired of seeing our young men age on the corner, hanging out there year after year, feeling there aren’t any opportunities for them, further developing the mindset not to try because that’s their lot in life.

This encouragement is not to create another trend but to make sustainable changes. There are many trending things in our world, but not all are sustained by everyone because, for most, they’re just following the crowd. Mentoring shouldn’t be something that we consider vogue. It is a calling because it requires so much commitment from the mentor. Therefore, you must know it’s what you really want to do. After all, your mentees depend on your commitment—they need the assurance that you’ll be there when the going gets tough. Therefore, conduct a pulse check on why you desire to mentor or why you will not get involved. The fight is ours; we need to get involved. Have you ever wondered if the person who has the solution for cancer has not reached medical school because he is on the corner? Perhaps his dream was laughed at or beaten out of him, and his environment could not mold the vision within him?

How does one develop a passion for mentoring? You can develop a passion for mentoring when you decide to serve others by helping to pull them up to their next level. It’s when you see mentorship as being bigger than yourself. It is seeing the vision to impact your mentee, including the outcome it will have on his life and the society. 

You must deliberately stoke your passion. Stoking comes as you allow yourself to care for the well-being and success of the younger generation of men. You should intentionally develop an interest in their welfare and the changes that occur within or around them. You must be willing and ready to help if there is a need. For you to become passionate about mentoring, you must allow yourself to develop an interest. Then, allow the interest to grow; see the need, choose to walk along with a younger man for his growth and development, and envisage the ripple effect of your decision. Repeat it frequently and consistently, and your passion will develop. Mentorship can provide a young man with the stability he needs and help him understand the difficulties he faces along his journey. The fact is that many youths need guidance. Generally, they are guided by their peers, who, of course, aren’t more mature and don’t always have accurate information. Millennials’ experiences differ from older generations, so guiding them through uncharted waters of the moral divides will benefit them. Your passion can be developed when you look at all the things that challenge their self-development and identity.

In a world where the use of sperm banks is prevalent, this makes it one of the nontraditional ways of having a child with the potential of affecting a young man’s identity. Our modern families have two mothers but no father or two fathers but no mother, as well as a superfluity of single parents. Our modern families don’t improve family life but add some unique challenges to the crisis in a young man’s life. I once heard a report of a young man bemoaning the fact that he doesn’t have a father and will never have one, but he has two mothers who can’t teach him how to shave or be a man and explain the changes in his body as he gets older. Can you see how a man going alongside him could answer many questions and help him develop a healthy identity of self? Just imagine his struggle with Who am I generally. There’s no trace of his sperm donor. Hence, no trace of his missing link, and that link may never be found. Can you see his silent confusion and buried predicament? There are many like him, and if you can place yourself in their shoes, you may develop some compassion and become passionate about making a difference in their lives.

Yet, there is another youngster who is trying to survive the streets. He has to fight to survive in his community because it’s a tough one. He crosses your path frequently; stop for a moment and look at him. Ask yourself, how can I help him before his heart becomes callous? Or worse, kills one of his attackers in defense, then his life goes from bad to worse because he will be imprisoned. Due to complicating life, there are many issues affecting our boys and young men. If you are sensitive, they can easily pull on your heart, igniting a desire to walk with them as you guide them to make wise decisions and save their lives. Our nations’ prisons hold millions of young men whose lives are wasting away in prison while our societies suffer from the deficit. Passion develops when you’re willing to open your heart; a closed heart can’t and won’t see with compassion the difficulties of others. Open hearts cause open eyes, which stir compassion, developing into actions and slowly transforming into a catalyst to influence the younger generation of males.

You can only develop a passion to mentor a youth by choosing to love regardless, deciding to take part and stay involved for as long as they need your help to desire a purposeful way of life. We can’t save the world, but each of us can help someone. As a future mentor, you’ll have to challenge yourself to be ‘other-centered’ and not self-centered to mentor a younger male. If you should look at a young man, what or who do you see? Usually, what is seen isn’t always what is. Be willing to change your mindset and opinion when necessary so that you can help him on his journey as you explain life to him through your lenses of hindsight.

As responsible citizens, our responsibility to our young men is to develop a desire to mentor them so that we can positively influence and affect their lives. The preparation will have a polarizing effect. We need to decisively mentor our boys as progressive societies, counteracting those luring our young men and boys into gangs. We must fight for them against all the other negative influences in their lives by helping them make wise choices. It can