This research summary was developed by Pathways to Education.

HERE’S HOW THE AUTHORS DESCRIBE THIS RESEARCH SUMMARY:

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the effects of a mentoring program on the self-regulation skills of youth participating in a summer recreation program. Self-regulation scores were collected at three intervals from participants in the treatment and control groups. The results demonstrate that the treatment group had a greater increase in self-regulation skills over time.

Self-regulation skills are one of the strongest predictors of whether youth are able to manage difficult life circumstances or not, and youth develop these skills within supportive relationships with adults via modeling. Recreation programs are a context in which adults are already supporting youth, and so they are an ideal setting in which to leverage adult-youth relationships via formal mentoring focused on fostering self-regulation skills, in order to better understand the effects of these supportive adult-youth relationships.