Being a mentor impacts being a parent
Nadav is a hands-on parent. He never wanted to be the sort of dad who locks himself away in an office and doesn’t make time for his kids. So it was a shock when his children started complaining that he spends more time with Mikey, his Kav L’Noar mentee, than with them. Nadav thinks that this complaint is a bit exaggerated. However, it has made him realize that his relationship with Mikey really does take up a lot of his time, thought and attention and his children have certainly noticed.
Nadav is not the only parent who feels that being a Kav L’Noar mentor has changed things at home. Aliza feels that the way she talks to her children has changed ever since she started working with her mentee. Her connection with 14 year old Meira has given her a mental picture of the issues her own seven year old daughter might have to grapple with in a few years time. She is much more aware of the impact she can have, for good and for bad.
Maya told her Kav L’Noar supervisor that she had never met anyone like her mentee Sapir before. Working out how to accommodate Sapir’s personality, background and particular issues has forced Maya to connect to buried parts of herself that she has never had to face before. Maya thinks that we all tell ourselves certain stories about who we are. Once we have children, those stories become part of our identities as parents. Maya says that her relationship with Sapir has made her rethink her own story, and what she naturally reveals to her loved ones every day. She never expected that helping a young teen would have such an impact on her own sense of self and on her own family.
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