Recognizing Boundaries

Lilly is a 23 year old new teacher.  She has gotten her dream job in a suburban elementary school in the grade of her choice, 2nd grade.  She has established an incredibly strong collegial relationship with her mentor, Karen.  As Lilly explains, “Karen has given me the benefit of her 25 years of teaching.  Any time that I have a question or concern, Karen is there to help.  She has truly been the one person that I can count on all of the time.”  Lilly has expressed that Karen is a “master teacher,” one brilliantly capable of teaching children subject matter and learning-for-life abilities.  Lilly mentions that she “looks up to Karen” and that “she hopes to be the kind of teacher that Karen is” as she continues her own career.

Lilly is a superb new teacher.  She takes risks in the classroom in order to give her students novel, meaningful experiences.  She is highly reflective and thoughtful about her practice; she has already established highly effective methods with which new teachers often struggle in their first years.  Simply stated, Lilly is a superb new teacher.

Although Lilly thinks very highly of Karen’s teaching and her mentoring ability, it became apparent to Lilly in the second half of the year that she wanted to establish more independence.  Gradually, Lilly and Karen tapered off the amount of time that they would meet on a weekly basis in order to accommodate Lilly’s wishes of independence.  Lilly relates that “Karen has been amazingly willing to give me my space.  She understands how to pull back and let me go on my own.”  In fact, Karen and Lilly have established a partnering model that works well for both of them.  Lilly explains, “I feel more like a professional colleague with Karen than I do a mentee.  What I mean is that Karen asks me for advice, and I ask her for the same.  We bounce ideas off of one another instead of me just asking her for advice.  It’s been really nice being able to find a place where my opinion matters.  I’m not just the new teacher.  I am also a contributor to the 2nd grade team.”

Lilly is extremely happy with the professional relationship that she has been able to establish with Karen and the other 2nd grade teachers, but a problem has begun to present itself.  The other teachers, especially Karen, have begun to ask Lilly to make social plans outside of school.  Karen is married and has three children.  Often, the social plans include Karen’s husband and children as well as the spouses and children of other teachers.  Lilly feels awkward around the families of other teachers; “I love Karen and the other teachers, but spending time with their families is hard for me.  I am in my early twenties, and Karen is in her late forties.  She has children that are teenagers.  I don’t have anything in common with her in terms of our social lives.  They like to go bowling and have barbecues.  My friends and I go to clubs.   When I was invited to a Christmas party at Karen’s house, I felt like the oldest child that desperately wants to be somewhere else besides with the older crowd.”

As Karen and Lilly have gotten closer professionally, Karen continues to ask Lilly to spend time with her family.  Lilly has begun to make excuses about why she cannot spend time with Karen outside of school; many times these excuses are fake.  “I feel terrible for making up reasons that I can’t see Karen, but I feel that I would make it worse if I told her straight out that I don’t want to see her socially outside of school.  I have asked Karen out for dinner, just the two of us, but she jut turns it around on me and asks me over to her house for dinner with the family.  Karen has been the best mentor.  I don’t want to hurt her feelings by always turning her down.”

As the school year comes to a close, Lilly has expressed that her relationship with Karen has become awkward.  After a number of times that Lilly rebuffed Karen’s invitations, it was clear to Lilly that “Karen started to act differently towards me at school.  We used to talk all the time about her family, but now Karen rarely mentions anything about her time outside of school.  It also feels like it has carried over into my relationships with some of the other 2nd grade teachers.  Where we once used to openly talk about our social lives, I feel isolated from these kinds of conversations.  I feel out of the loop.  Karen didn’t even tell me that her son got into college.  That would have been something she would have told me first thing in the morning over coffee.”

Lilly feels that because she did not accept Karen’s social calls, that her professional relationship has been damaged.  “Maybe I should have gone over to Karen’s home a couple of times to show her that I value her friendship.  I want to be friends with Karen, but our age gap is an issue for me.  I can’t ask Karen out with my younger friends, and I don’t want to be the odd person out at her family get-togethers.”  Furthermore, Lilly feels like she “lost a great mentor.  I don’t feel like my teaching is as good without the closeness I had with Karen.”

Questions

1. What are Lilly’s responsibilities in this situation as the new teacher to resolve this dilemma?  What are Karen’s responsibilities as the mentor?
2. Did Karen overstep a boundary as a mentoring teacher in asking Lilly for social plans?
3. Could Lilly have avoided this situation?  Would there have been a way for her to continue her strong collegial bond while also declining Karen’s social calls?
4. What have Lilly and Karen done well in their mentoring relationship?  What were their missteps?

Another Look

The bond that Lilly and Karen formed is common in mentoring relationships, especially when much thought goes into the pairing.  Becoming friends immediately, however, is not necessarily the best thing for a mentoring partnership.  Finkelstein and Poteet explain that “mentors have an obligation to maintain appropriate boundaries since they have the most power in the relationship.  In addition to valuing respect and avoiding misuse of power, mentors should initiate regular conversation about the nature of the mentoring relationship.  What needs of mine (as a mentor) are being met in this relationship that would be better met in a different relationship that did not have a power differential?”   Karen may have overstepped boundaries that she should have set for her mentoring relationship with Lilly.  There is nothing wrong with being friendly and caring, but by inviting Lilly over to her home crossed a line.

The University of Minnesota’s Counseling and Consulting Services agrees with Finkelstein and Poteet’s analysis; “despite claims to the contrary, mentees are often unaware of the negative consequences associated with voluntary boundary violations; therefore, responsibility for maintaining boundaries generally resides with the mentor.” Karen’s actions were surely not intentional and may be a result of poor mentor training.  Regardless, mentors can learn from her mistakes. 

Consider these points by Lisa Bottomley:

Poor boundaries in a mentoring relationship can result in:

• The mentor or mentee feeling that he or she cannot say no to – or disagree with – one another
• Anxiety and discomfort on both sides
• A mentor or mentee having codependent and unclear expectations
• A mentee who feels like a victim
• The development of one-sided relationships – with no give and take
• Feelings of over-responsibility  

It is obvious that Karen and Lilly enjoy each other’s company and would have been friends even if their mentoring partnership had not brought them together.  The lesson here is that mentors and mentees must first dissolve their formal partnership before crossing boundaries that could jeopardize their professional relationship.