Falling in Love With Your Mentees (Is Cleary Unethical)

This week Haley and Cole gave a fantastic presentation on ethics and such. Ethics, as many people know, are what separate us from the animals. Ethics make the world go round. They are particularly helpful for peer mentors because they allow us to have a healthy, professional relationship with the students. If we display ethical behavior, then we can serve as role models to the students as well.

The book notes many ethical principles that mentors should follow, but some of the principles are more important than others. For example, understanding your own personal bias and avoiding imposing this bias on others is a great principle. Every single one of us has different beliefs, creeds, ideologies, and prejudices. It is important that we understand these beliefs and prejudices, so that we may not only help ourselves to eliminate these prejudices, but so that we can also avoid displaying them in front of the students. We shouldn't force the students to believe something, and we should not give the students the chance to adopt a negative belief. I always say that you should keep politics and religion out of your professional relationships. Another important principle is maintaining confidentiality. My career goal is to become a counselor, and this is an important part of the counseling process. If someone shares a secret or personal thought with you, and you tell others, they will be offended and will be less likely to share in the future. The students deserve our respect, and we should not go around telling others of any issues that they may have. However, we should know that if the students have issues that are life-threatening to them or another person, we have to reconsider confidentiality. A final important principle regards feelings of attraction. If we have romantic feelings towards the students, we should not act on them due to our professional relationship with them. Personally, I feel it is a sketchy, gray area because you cannot really control who you fall for romantically. Still, keeping it professional is important.

It is important to remember all of the ethical principles. Of course, real life isn't as clear cut as the book makes it out to be, and we will encounter some conundrums that require long periods of thought. Luckily, we are not alone. There are 16 other peer mentors to help us if we are confused. In addition, we have Chelsee, Debra, and Allie to assist us if we encounter big problems. We may not encounter most of these ethical situations, but knowing what to do during them allows us to be prepared any possible outcome.