Who to turn to

Humans are capable of great cruelty and great kindness. We have to choose which direction to take. Our circumstances may make it easy to be cruel, and difficult to be kind - peer pressure, fitting into a gang and so on. A child has to learn that choosing to be kind is a life choice, not a convenient strategy, and that once chosen there may be difficulties and sacrifices. So, if someone needs help, the positive choice is to offer it, even at personal cost.
Equally there will have been others who have helped us throughout our life, unselfishly and with good intentions. A child in school will have encountered unselfish people to turn to, who deal honestly and expect no return. At moments of crisis, they may have been helped by talking to a relative, or a friend. They have to distinguish between good advice and bad advice by thinking about social justice, honesty and trust. Both families and schools have a role to play, helping pupils to develop positive personal values. It doesn't happen by accident.
Of course, when we need the support, those kindly mentors are not always around. When anger erupts in the playground, the grandfather's reasoned guidance is far away. So the child needs that mentor in his or her head, a mental mentor. This is the social skill of asking, "what would my mentor do in this situation? what would they advise me?". To picture one's mentor mentally helps some. In such a visualisation, we might talk, play and do things mentally with our mentor. Christy Moore the musician described on Radio 4 how meeting with his dead father in his mind, and playing on the beach as though 6 years old, greatly helped him. He was able to have those discussions that he always regretted not being able to have. Children too can enter into similar discussions in their heads as easily as they can enter into a story they are reading. There is a dimension of imagination where such things can take place. The difference is that in fiction they enter someone else's world; in visualisation they enter into their own and can sort out their own difficulties.