"If children are not happy and if they don't have self confidence and self esteem, it's difficult to teach them anything else ... We help children to create a winning mindset that helps them with happiness and success in their lives."
Businesses and non-profit organizations regularly open and move in Saskatoon. Today the StarPhoenix talks to Shauna Basaraba, who recently opened Mindset Mentorship along with her sister Tina Nivon McGillivray at the Experior Financial Building near the airport.
The pair are excited to work together in the personal development or life coaching area for children who are around 6-12 years old. They offer one-on-one and small group sessions along with workshops helping children with confidence, resilience, self-esteem, peer pressure and building dreams.
Q: What made you start Mindset Mentorship?
A: I was working in schools for 26 years and then I realized subjects like math, social studies and language arts are all great, but they are missing the foundation, missing the building blocks, which is the character of the person. If children are not happy and if they don’t have self confidence and self-esteem, it’s difficult to teach them anything else. In school, there are health classes that cover bits and pieces of everything, following the Saskatchewan curriculum. But we teach an actual mindset, so it wouldn’t be covered exactly like that.
Q: What kinds of coaching packages do you offer?
A: We have five different coaching packages, each with five or six sessions. The coaching package we’re promoting right now is confidence, starting March 2. The confidence workshop deals with whether or not kids believe in themselves, how they shape who they are and the life they create. A lot of times kids will sit on the sidelines if they don’t have confidence. We teach them that to get the confidence, you have to do the things. We help them manage their fears so that they can get to the point where they’re doing things.
Other workshops we offer include building resilience, which means helping kids learn how to handle the tough times in life like making mistakes, experiencing disappointment and facing changes. Our self-esteem workshop covers how kids feel about themselves, which is one of the biggest influences on both their happiness and what they create in their lives. Another one, peer pressure, is one of the toughest challenges kids face while growing up. It’s also one of the top reasons kids get in trouble. Finally, we offer a dreams workshop. Throughout history humans have made the once impossible, possible, all as a result of dreaming.
Q: Which children can benefit from Mindset Mentorship?
A: It’s for kids about 6-12 years old, but they don’t have to be exactly that age because some kids are old for five and some kids are really young for 14. The confidence, resilience and self-esteem workshops are often going to be for kids who are struggling or having trouble in school or at home and can’t figure out why. The peer pressure workshop is meant for kids a bit older. And if you look at the dreams workshop, that is for kids who are doing relatively well, but want to get to the next level. But all of the packages serve everybody because they act as a defensive measure as well. So you can learn the mindset early before you have confidence issues. So they all act as preventative.
Q: Did you create the curriculum?
A: No. Our parent company is Adventures in Wisdom. She (Renaye Thornborrow) comes up with all the messaging for each package. When you buy Adventures in Wisdom, you buy the curriculum, your licence and the business portion of it about how to run the business.
Q: What makes Mindset Mentorship different from other similar options for children?
A: We are story based. I think that’s probably what makes us stand out. Children love stories, and they always have and probably always will. We would tell a story as a part of our curriculum. We would tell a short story and then we would have a discussion about that story, how it relates to children’s lives. And then we would do an activity based on that story and discussion and then we give a take-home sheet for the parent with what was done in that particular session. I think it’s a lot different from counselling, where you’re talking about your feelings. Having a story and being able to relate yourself and your life to it and then doing a fun activity. We try to make it fun and interactive.
Q: What made you decide to choose the specific name Mindset Mentorship?
A: We help children to create a winning mindset that helps them with happiness and success in their lives. And I consider myself a child coach mentor and advocate. I don’t want to say that it’s just coaching, because then a lot of people relate that with sports and dictatorship — like not with the interactivity. Mentorship, because we do it together alongside each other.
Q: You also recently opened Restore Reflexology. What services do you offer there?
A: The primary goal (of reflexology) is to activate the parasympathetic nervous system to induce intense relaxation. It fits with Mindset Mentorship. A lot of kids who are struggling are unregulated. By introducing this way to deep relaxation we get them focused. If they’re struggling in school we try to get them a lot more self-regulated and focused. But beyond that it promotes healing just by bringing circulation to different areas and it balances all of your organs. I actually hope to integrate Restore Reflexology and Mindset Mentorship someday because it all helps with self-regulation for children.
Q: What do you love most about operating Mindset Mentorship?
A: I think making a difference in kids lives, having an impact on children with the process of transforming them into the person that they want to be in their lives. When I was in school, I saw a lot of kids suffering on the inside, with their person, their self. And we can’t really get anything across to them if they have that.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Mindset Mentorship
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