As a mentor to a teen girl, how do I kindly assert personal boundaries?
Hi r/AskTeachers ! I'm (24F) a mentor to a high school junior and need advice on kindly communicating/asserting personal boundaries to both make this a teachable moment for her, but also cultivate a healthy mentor-mentee relationship. I truly enjoy mentoring her, as I remember being that age and wishing I had someone to confide in for advice on navigating anxieties surrounding school, friends, family, and culture. For context, our families are friends, and I have known her since she was very young. While we played as kids our relationship has evolved into me taking on a big sis kinda role after I went to college, graduated, and started working full-time. My mentorship style is treating the mentee as a peer, and creating a comfortable space where they can confide in me as a friend too. While I consider this relationship a type of friendship, I still think there are certain natural boundaries due to us being in different life stages, and I'm struggling on how to properly communicate this without being patronizing or making her feel infantilized. She is a very capable and smart young women and I enjoy hanging out with her as a friend beyond the scope of mentoring!
The problem is she seems to forget I'm an adult with a full-time job and also a 20-something-year-old who can't be there for every little thing and sometimes just wants to hang out with her other 20-something year old friends. I currently live with my parents to save on rent, but commute an hour into the city for work. I wonder if this indirectly signals away from my adulthood? I will get many messages from her throughout the day of every academic occurrence, and while I don't mind reading over an email draft here and there, it turns into multiple, very long messages like this every day. Additionally, she would ask to come over to my house to hang out and study on week nights, which is ok once in a while, but I can't welcome this frequently. I tried to space out my responses and reply days later explaining I'm quite busy. When it was getting too much at times, I gently communicated I have a job and don't have the capacity to be involved at this level. While she would apologize and be understanding, the routine is still the same. This is not the case where she doesn't have friends or others to talk to, and I'm glad she has other support systems. That being said, I wonder now if I'm being too nice and need to be more firm.
I also think this is a teachable moment about professionalism. In the professional space, sending your mentor or supervisor multiple messages and asks about every minor inconvenience is not ideal. In the real world, this behavior is how people get ghosted! The thing is, I remember not understanding certain cues and getting ghosted or feeling an off vibe from elders/mentors when I was younger, so it's important to me to always be honest and direct because I would've deeply valued that from others. How do I do this while firmly making my boundaries clear?
Edit: while this isn't a formal mentorship through an organization, I act as a mentor in addition to a friend in every sense. I have connected her to volunteering and high school internship opportunities, coached her for public speaking competitions, and reviewed essays. I realize my level of involvement would warrant payments from more formal organizations, but it's in my nature to help for free. While I enjoy mentoring in these ways, it can be very draining, and receiving frequent messages in addition to that has made me overwhelmed!