engleski

Aspects of Natural Mentoring Relationships and Adolescent Positive Development

During adolescence young people often turn to other caring adults who are not their parents. These important trusted adults who provide them with help, support and guidance are called natural mentors. J. Rhodes proposes a model (2006) highlighting the main processes through which mentoring relationships influence youth: social and emotional development, cognitive development, and identity development. The goal of this research was to examine the most common situations and topics shared in these relationships and processes of influence they have on adolescent development. The data were collected from 277 high school students (56% female, M=16.53 years old). They answered open-ended questions about the situations and places where they meet with their natural mentors, topics they discuss with them, and their most common topics of conflict. The youth also described the ways in which natural mentors help them in their everyday lives. Their answers were coded and structured into themes with thematic analysis. The findings show that more than half of the adolescents (69%) are related to their natural mentors and see them in family gatherings (18%) or when visiting each other’s homes (14%). The most common topics of conversation are school (20%), different common interests (13.5%), or youths’ friends and friendships (10%). Although conflicts with natural mentors were shown to be rare, the most common discussions were about certain behaviour or lifestyle choices (17.6%). The ways of support were divided into three main ways of support - support for psychological well-being (40%), positive identity (33%), and cognitive well-being (26%). This research confirms the Rhodes model of the influence of mentoring relationships and it casts new light on the context of natural mentoring relationships in a Croatian setting.

Natural Mentors, Well-being, Positive Youth Development

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