The essential goal of mentorship is twofold: To assist children and youth in completing the incomplete or fragmented nervous system imprinting from childhood, and to assist them in expanding their range of choice of action through recognizing and broadening nervous system habits (for example, many fighters need to learn how to freeze or flee, many freezers need to fight or flee, and many fleers need to freeze or fight.)

Flight Response Mentorship

• Running (to complete belonging, and to complete the flight response)
• Competitive games (to activate the fight response)
• Squash (orienting)
• Soccer, frizbee, judo, aikido (safe fighting)
• Rock climbing (self-esteem)
• Community service and development

Freeze Response Mentorship

• Running (to unlock the flight response)
• Martial arts (safe fighting)
• Windsurfing (body awareness, centering)
• Weight training (energy increase and containment)
• Soccer, hiking, aerobics (energy management)

Orienting Response Mentorship

• Activities involving active choosing (orienteering)
• All team sports (collaboration)
• Safe extreme sports (white water kayaking)
• Meditation, relaxation, juggling

Fight Response Mentorship

• Relaxation (to activate the freeze response)
• Non-competitive games
• Games with containment and expression (tennis, backgammon)
• Meditation (the least favorite activity of fighters)
• Horseback riding, walking, gardening Tai Chi, Chi Kung

Psychological Mentorship

Working on the psychological level, a good mentor helps the adolescent to explore such themes as:

• What remains unfinished from childhood development?
• How does this create vulnerability to certain kinds of behaviors?
• In what ways does the adolescent get stuck?
• What are the adolescent’s deepest values and beliefs? How might it be possible to manifest these?
• What is important to remember?
• What must be learned, un-learned, or re-learned?
• What is the adolescent good at?
• What are they so good at that it works against them?
• Where are they going?
• Who are they?

Therapeutic Mentorship

Social services practitioners, teachers, coaches, and others often fulfil mentorship roles. For adolescents, such mentorship requires the following types of communication from the mentor:

• I want you to understand who you are.
• I want you to know yourself.
• I understand that sometimes things can be overwhelming, and I will assist you to understand and deal with this when it happens.
• I will help you become a lifelong learner.
• I will help you find ways of reaching your goals.
• I want you to plan and envision your life with joy.
• I am proud to see who you are becoming, and to be a part of it.
• I am proud of who you are.