Volunteer work for parents: Are you doing any? Share your experience!

[thebottomsupblog]

I’ll go first. I’ve recently volunteered as a youth mentor and learning coach for Beyond Social Services.

For learning coaches, it’s very similar to tutoring, but you’ll also have to contend with factors such as your student’s family situation and learning setup. For me, I tutored in the void deck, and no-shows were very common. Even if you do link up with the parent, and they are communicative, there may be factors that make it difficult for them to support this learning effort. Sometimes they choose to pull out as well, because they don’t wish to waste anyone’s time.

So it’s a lot about empathy and non-judgement, and also learning to deal with families that have very different situations from your own. Eg your own kids might be absent solely due to illness, but you may find that the kids you’re helping have school refusal issues etc. So a statement such as, “Oh my child also missed school, lots of kids having the flu” doesn’t build connection.

For my learning coach stint, I worked with teens to support them in setting up projects to benefit the community. This round, they held soccer and art workshops for younger kids. These teens had also volunteered, so there was a lot of good energy going in the same direction for that effort.

I’ll be returning to that project soon

[thebottomsupblog]

Talked to close friends yesterday, and one mentioned that last year, he had sponsored a shopping trip in KL for children in an orphanage, through his sister who lives there.

This year, he’s thinking of going to KL, to take the kids out himself, along with his sister.

For myself, I was too busy this year to volunteer (work, studies, elderly families being ill). Now that I have a bit more time again, am thinking about what I can do!