Stand in the gap and help the next generation

Growing up, I never thought of people who were my mentors. I had family, I had friends, and there were adults surrounding me. Looking back, it's hard to distinguish who were or were not mentors in my life, but that's not a bad thing. The good thing is that I can look back and see their handiwork in my life today.

My mom, siblings, my friends and the families we were close to all served as mentors to me during critical stages in my development. Today, I think of them and how they served me with a 'tech” analogy and call them 'myCloud.” These people seamlessly handed off information about me to one another without me ever realizing it. This information they passed about my growth was key to keeping me moving in the right direction, and even nudging me back onto the path if I strayed.

We all want to have myCloud, either to be someone at the center, or to be the one in the Cloud, itself. Today, the problem is we don't take enough time to get to know the people who need mentoring. Instead, we react on the basis of quick information, like the first thing we see or hear from an individual; even letting our biases get in the way. Instead, we need build relationships and learn how to communicate with our youth.

Even a store mnager can have a teachable moment! 'Do you really want to take that without paying for it?” could replace, 'I'm calling the police!” when talking to a young person in the act of making a mistake. Taking an extra minute to redirect our kids to get them back on task isn't something that should be left to the classroom, because all of us learn everywhere we go … or at least we should.

Unfortunately, our society is a society constantly on the run. There is division in our households and in our community. There are too many fatherless households, meaning we have kids in our community without mentors. Single mothers are working hard to make ends meet and our kids are left without the most critical mentors there can be. Where are the mentors stepping into the gap? This isn't a criticism of single mothers or 'normal” nuclear families; it's simply a call to ask the question to find if there's an acceptable answer.

Being a mentor involves so much more than just the educational part of our kids' life. It's about having honest conversations with real people who don't walk like you, talk like you or think like you. It's unfortunate that today we're having real funerals for real teenagers and this has got to stop.

We can avert this crisis in our community through more effective mentoring. So, today, as soon as you finish reading the period at the end of this essay, ask yourself, 'Who is in myCloud?” If you don't know, then find someone. If you know someone, reconnect with him or her. And, if you have someone you mentor, tell them to pass myCloud on to another person. Stand in the gap. Help our next generation become better leaders, believers and achievers through effective mentoring.

' Alphonce O'Bannon is executive director of the Leaders, Believers, Achievers (LBA)Foundation and head coach at Transitions Lab University Prep School. More information: www.lbajourney.org; www.studentenrichmentprograms.com. Comments: al@lbajourney.org