Is It Safe for Your Child to Have an Adult Mentor?

Is it safe for your child to have an adult mentor or is it too risky given the influence that mentors can develop with your child?  I believe in most cases that having a mentor provides some much needed positive adult influence.  In today's society, there are many families where one parent is missing from the household for long periods of time.  Whether this is due to a divorce, a traveling parent or military service is unimportant.  A mentor can fulfill a need that the child has for adult contact.  I think the larger issue facing parents is how to choose the right mentor.

Parents everywhere whose children meet with a mentor must be rethinking their decision given the recent stories of the Penn State coach, the Syracuse coach and the Craigslist killer.  I don't believe that we, as parents, should discount the mentoring program altogether because of a few horrific cases.  I think that we should instead give thought to how we choose these mentors for our children.  Do your homework about a potential mentor.  Anyone who is unwilling to have a backround check may be trying to hide something.  In each of these high profile cases, there was some red flags in their past that would have eliminated them as a possible mentor for my child.  I don't believe this to be an invasion of the possible mentors privacy because more than likely everything that you need to know is out their on the internet for anyone to find.