323: How Can Mentorship Transform Your Journey in Early Childhood Education? With Meghan Cornwell

In this episode of Childcare Conversations, you’ll meet Meghan Cornwell, whose journey from theatre and entertainment marketing to early childhood education is anything but typical! Meghan opens up about the ups and downs of finding mentorship—like being “ghosted” and feeling unsure how to ask for help. 

Together, the trio shares wisdom on making mentorship meaningful (and less intimidating), the hidden skills we all bring, and how even small contributions can make a big difference. If you’ve ever wondered how to give or get support in childcare, this chat is full of practical, heartfelt advice. 

https://www.famly.co/us/blog/mentorship-in-early-childhood-education-why-it-matters-and-how-to-make-it-happen

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Transcript

Kate Woodward Young (00:05)
Sometimes you want to have somebody to talk to and sometimes you want somebody to listen. On today's episode, we're going to talk with Megan Cornwell. And part of the reason we reached out to Megan is that Megan shared a story with us about how an episode that we had with Jamie Rechenheimer, and I am going to share that episode in the show notes, how it touched her as well as

maybe frustrated her a little. And so we're going to talk about that frustration today. So Megan, tell us a little bit about what you do, how you ended up in early childcare. And from there, Carrie and I are going to have a conversation with you.

Carrie Casey (00:46)
you

Meghan (00:47)
Well, thank you both for having me. I'm really excited to be here. The episode with Jamie really resonated because I felt like she had a similar background to me in that it wasn't very linear. It was a little all over the place. So my degree is actually in theater and communications, believe it or not. So nothing to do with early childhood. And when I graduated school, I thought that I was going to be in the

entertainment industry for a while. My first job out of school was doing marketing and graphic design for artists in the entertainment industry. like Justin Bieber and the Beatles and Lady Gaga and Cher were all of my clients, which was really cool ⁓ until I felt like they didn't need my help anymore. You know, they kind of had it covered. ⁓

Carrie Casey (01:36)
Yeah

Meghan (01:39)
So I ended up switching and working for a education company where I was living in Charlottesville at the time. And they did a lot of, well, I'll just say it was TeachStone. So they're the makers of the class tool that some might be familiar with. ⁓ And while I wasn't familiar with childcare or the class tool, I very quickly was like, this is it. Like, I actually feel like I can use my skills.

in communication, in graphic design, and in marketing, and I can use it to support a field that I really believe in. And it all kind of felt like it had like culminated to me finding this spot because my mother was a preschool teacher. She actually homeschooled me for a while. So not only was she my teacher, but then she got a quote unquote field job, but worked outside in a preschool. And my mother-in-law is a childcare teacher.

Carrie Casey (02:25)
Mm-hmm.

Meghan (02:32)
And I've nannied and babysat. have 17 nieces and nephews. So it all kind of felt like it was around me this whole time in my life. ⁓ But then I was like, this is the space for me. So I've been in early childhood for quite a while now, 10, 11 years. ⁓ And now I'm working at Family, the child care management app that some might be familiar with. So yeah, that is kind of my background, not necessarily

in the child care program, but around it. I'll put it that way.

Carrie Casey (03:06)
Yeah. Well, I have I don't know that that theater is not related to child care because I think every educator is a performer. They may not think of themselves that way, but having been a theater nerd and the parent of theater nerds and now married to a theater nerd, it's the same job. It's just a different size stage.

Meghan (03:12)
Yeah.

Yes, and I'll give you a little improv yes and there. There's a lot of play involved, right? In theater and in the classroom.

Carrie Casey (03:34)
Okay. Yeah.

At least there should be.

Meghan (03:43)
That's true, yes, I agree.

Carrie Casey (03:45)
Some

people take, yeah, some people take both of those things way too seriously and don't have any fun. And I don't understand what they're doing with their lives. It doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah.

Kate Woodward Young (03:45)
That's the whole goal.

Meghan (03:55)
You

Kate Woodward Young (03:56)
Not playing with play-doh.

Meghan (03:58)
You

Kate Woodward Young (03:59)
Not enough play-doh. That's what that is.

Carrie Casey (04:02)
mean, if

you're not playing like, you know, mafia and zip bam, you know, no, that's wrong. Zap, zip, zop. Yep. So if you're not playing things like that, then you're doing things wrong, I think.

Meghan (04:09)
Zip zaps up. We actually played that with my six year old last night. That's so funny.

Well, yes.

Kate Woodward Young (04:20)
So one of the things that we chatted about with the episode was that whole role of finding a mentor. And I was sharing right before we jumped on the podcast that back in the day, and I can say that with pure confidence of it being well over three decades of that, I used to attend like every women's networking event, no demand.

Carrie Casey (04:42)
Hehehe.

Kate Woodward Young (04:48)
And I gave out business cards like they were going out of style, but every association or group at least a couple of times a year had either a how to be a mentor or how to get a mentor kind of conversations. And after having Megan's email come in, it dawned on me that I've never seen that kind of topic ⁓ as an actual topic, even at a conference. And

that let's have that discussion because one of the things that we hear and we talked about him with Megan is that sometimes you might go and you want one, but the person who you ask doesn't know what that means. And for lack of a term, they're going to ghost you, maybe, kind of.

Meghan (05:26)
Mm-hmm.

Yes. Yeah, that's exactly what happened to me. So like I said, I had never been in the classroom, but I've been working adjacent to it in marketing at three different organizations. And I always felt this kind of sense of maybe like imposter syndrome or like just wanting to hear more from somebody who really has that experience of being in the classroom as a director or as a teacher.

Because my job as like a marketer communications expert should be to help spread the word or give you the resources that you need to do your job. And I was looking for quite a while for somebody to kind of give some more of that insight. I reached out to somebody that I had kind of met a couple of times ⁓ over the years at industry meetups. And I just sent a DM because I really respected her. And I was like,

hey, this is maybe a little awkward, but would you be interested in maybe meeting every now and then? I'm looking for somebody to catch up with on a regular basis as some sort of a mentor role. And I didn't hear back actually, and I felt so embarrassed. I was like, did I overstep some sort of a boundary I wasn't aware of? I don't know. And as an introvert, that's really hard for me to step out of my comfort zone.

I just wish that there was, if there were some sort of like conference presentation on how to find a mentor, never, that didn't come to me. So I was just trying to grasp at straws essentially.

Carrie Casey (07:05)
Well, and I think...

Kate Woodward Young (07:05)
All right, so Carrie,

what would you say to a Megan ⁓ who is looking for a mentor or even somebody who was the person who ghosted Megan? Which one do you want to start with? Do you want to start with the Megan?

Carrie Casey (07:09)
Mm-hmm.

Well,

I had a thought process, which is, think that sometimes when somebody hears that word, I would like you to be my mentor, or I'm really looking to pick your brain about stuff. What the person who is being asked here is, I would like to use a whole bunch of your time in a way that is not at all helpful to you. I just want to use your time. I want to...

Kate Woodward Young (07:20)
I'm sorry.

Carrie Casey (07:45)
harvest your knowledge. And it's all for my benefit and nothing for yours. And they don't have the time, you know, like they may want to do it, but the whole thought process of, my gosh, having a mentee, that's probably like five hours a week, I don't have five hours a week, what am I? Or sometimes they have that imposter syndrome that you were talking about, and they're like,

Why would she want to hear from me? I've just been over here barely surviving running my program for the past decade. They needed she needs to move on and find somebody who's a real expert and learn from that real expert. I think both of those happen.

Kate Woodward Young (08:28)
Okay, so,

but let's talk about that because as a professional, the absolute least you should do is have the courtesy to respond to the person who sent you a message, right? At least at the absolute least is, hey, Megan, I totally hear you. I'm swamped. Megan, can do that for, via email. Can you just send me email questions? ⁓ The other thing is,

Carrie Casey (08:41)
Yes, I would agree with that.

Kate Woodward Young (08:57)
I think that there's some validity to what Carrie said, but I think it's our responsibility. And I'm going to point to all of us over the age of 45 to right now, over 2026, go find yourself an up and coming leader who you can, as you are climbing the ladder, that you can reach back, grab their hand and bring them with you. Now it doesn't have to be something because we may also hear

mentor, mentee, and think that this is some sort of structured commitment, like Carrie said. And it doesn't have to be like Megan was looking for somebody who she could just pick their brain, but that wasn't defined enough for the other, you know, part of it's that whole language, right? We've, probably all sat in on a workshop on how to communicate with the other generation. And even though you're not in a classroom, if those of you are in a classroom, go to a workshop on how to talk to the other generation,

Meghan (09:28)
Mm-hmm.

Carrie Casey (09:38)
Yeah.

Kate Woodward Young (09:52)
I want you to think about that from other perspectives such as how to be their mentor, how to be a mentee, how to go find one. And in the same back, if I came to you and said, Hey, Megan, I would love to be somebody who kind of met with you regularly. If you're looking for somebody like that in the industry, you also have to remember to respond back.

Meghan (10:00)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm

Carrie Casey (10:16)
Yeah, it has to go both directions. And I

think when asking, having gotten myself some mentors over the years, giving a very specific ask, because the I'd like to, you know, be able to meet with you from time to time and you know, just talk about trends in the industry. That sounds very amorphous and vague.

And where if instead you said, hey, I'd love to come shadow at your job. I would just like to shadow you for like one three hour period. Then they're like, ⁓ well, yeah, you can just walk around and follow me. mean, I'm just going to be changing diapers and redoing the lunch schedule for the 42nd time. And like that feels much less of a lift to be like, can I shadow you or?

Meghan (10:51)
Yeah.

Carrie Casey (11:11)
hey, I'd love to take you out for coffee because I wanna talk about this one thing. And that way, if it's, we're gonna talk about one thing, then they know what the purpose is and why you've picked them. And no conversation stays on one thing. So it will expand to be two or three things over the course of that conversation over coffee or lunch, but by making it slightly more specific,

Meghan (11:17)
Mmm.

Hmm

Carrie Casey (11:40)
and they can see how they get something positive out of it. Like somebody is in the building as an extra pair of hands ⁓ while shadowing them. They're like, that's not gonna be a huge problem. Shadowing is not a big deal or I'm gonna get coffee or ⁓ hey, I have a question about this one thing. When can we talk about this one thing? And so you're kind of auditioning.

Meghan (12:06)
you

Yeah. Without really, it's almost like you're auditioning without really dropping the word, like, because I do have other people in the industry who I highly respect and have invited me to their program. I have been, I've walked around and they're kind of like on my short list of people to reach out to if I've got questions. But I wasn't giving it a formal ⁓ title in my brain. But thinking about it, I'm like, well, she kind of has become one over the over the years.

Kate Woodward Young (12:08)
What were you gonna say, Megan?

Carrie Casey (12:14)
Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Meghan (12:38)
So that's funny, like adding a label can kind of like make both people feel some different feelings.

Kate Woodward Young (12:38)
actually.

Carrie Casey (12:45)
Yeah.

Kate Woodward Young (12:45)
So one of the things that Carrie mentioned was perhaps the person who is being approached as a mentor is like, what's in it for me? And

Meghan (12:56)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Woodward Young (12:57)
Leaders in childcare can be incredibly overwhelmed and just have a lot going on during their day. You actually have a skillset that might really be appealing. And it can be, not only can I come shadow you, I'll even take some pictures with your phone of you doing your stuff that day. So you are giving them, you're putting value on your time too, right? So you're respecting their time.

Meghan (13:24)
me.

Kate Woodward Young (13:25)
and you're offering on their camera to take some, you know, what it's like in the day of Suzy Q's, you know, program. ⁓ And you do it on their phone, right? So you're not even, you're not even owning the content. You're just sharing your skill because you probably know people. If not, I know people, I got a list for you. ⁓ Of people who

Meghan (13:43)
Mhm.

Carrie Casey (13:49)
Hahaha

Meghan (13:50)
⁓ I wanna

talk to everybody.

Kate Woodward Young (13:53)
Well, but what I'm thinking is even if you said, Hey, can I just come to your program? Cause especially like, you know, in your region or Hey, I'm going to be in your town this week. I'd love to drop by and Hey, if you've got any questions on how to take good photos with your cell phone, I'd be happy to answer those with you and your staff for 20 minutes when we're done chatting. And then you, again, you have something that you're giving them that you can offer because we all have seen those pictures of it's at the top of everybody's head.

or it's the back of everybody's head or everybody's butt.

Carrie Casey (14:25)
No, no,

no, the up-the-nose pictures, all the up-the-nose pictures.

Meghan (14:28)
No, those are the worst.

Kate Woodward Young (14:28)
Yeah.

Well, I mean, no,

really the worst are the teacher bending over the table.

Carrie Casey (14:37)
And then

we can see that they were in their 20s in the 1990s. So they got the nice little.

Kate Woodward Young (14:44)
But nobody edits those, right? if you were a, if you just spent, you know, 10, 15 minutes with some staff about, Hey, here's how we can take this picture. Cause they're taking it straight on. You know, if you take it from the kid's point of view, look how much different that photo looks are. If you stand up and come over two feet, you can now get her face and not her butt.

Meghan (15:08)
This

is so interesting. ⁓ It's something actually that's come up in therapy for me. Therapy is great. Love it. Hi. No, really, I think that I and many people have a tendency to think like, okay, this person over here has so many amazing skill sets. I think they're amazing. They're the cat's pajamas. And I want to be just like them. And I, you know, have a tendency to forget that, yeah, taking pictures on my phone.

Kate Woodward Young (15:15)
Well here we go, childcare conversations and therapy.

Meghan (15:37)
is kind of a no brainer to me. I've been doing it forever or putting together an email campaign. I can teach you how to use Facebook ads or anything like that. Like I don't think of those as being those skills that people are looking for. And I have a tendency to like just forget what I can have to offer. So this conversation is helpful in seeing how it is more of a that two way ⁓ relationship.

Carrie Casey (15:59)
Yeah.

And I'm going to throw another one for anybody who's listening, who has a theater or a music background. Another skill set you have that other people don't is the ability to take rejection and not take it super personally, because if you are a musician or an actor or a singer, people have told you or a graphic designer, right, an artist, somebody who has that.

Meghan (16:17)
Ooooo, yes. ⁓

for graphic designing.

Carrie Casey (16:28)
You have put something out that you thought was pretty good and other people have been like pass. No, thanks. And the ability to not take that personally, ⁓ you have developed over time. And that is a skill set that can be shared with others that I think is grossly underappreciated. I have a daughter who is a well, both of my daughters were theater nerds, but one of them

Meghan (16:34)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Carrie Casey (16:56)
just realized in the past couple of years, she was like, I kind of know everyone in my industry. Like I know everyone. And I'm like, yeah, because you can talk to anyone anywhere. And she's like, Yeah, but like, I know everyone. And I'm like, yeah, because you can talk to anyone. And that realization that you have, you know, like she

Meghan (17:05)
you

Carrie Casey (17:25)
She's in her 30s. Like this is not, I don't think it's a new fact, but to her, she had not realized that that ability to interface with people of different ages, different genders, different cultural backgrounds, et cetera. Some of it was probably the homeschooling. Some of it was probably the theater. Some of it was the nonprofit work. You you put it all together and you get this collection, but.

whatever that skill is that you have that is that unconscious competence, whether it's something you got from being in theater or we had another director from years ago, who had been a jeweler. Like if, if she wanted to get a mentor, one of the things she could do is say, Hey, I'd really like to come in and you know,

Meghan (17:57)
Mm.

cool.

Carrie Casey (18:18)
shadow your program for a couple of days. And ⁓ at the end, what I'd really love to do is ⁓ help all of your staff understand why different jewelry is or is not a good choice to at work. Because some of Kate's rings are gorgeous and have about 12 stones and probably are not a good choice when you're working in a classroom.

Meghan (18:36)
Cool.

Carrie Casey (18:47)
with a possibility of gastroenteritis. There's a lot of place for those germs to hide, right? And that's something that she could have talked about, or she could have been like, you know, we can do a, you know, design session or, you know, how to clean your jewelry.

Meghan (18:50)
Right, yes. Yeah.

Kate Woodward Young (19:02)
We've also had a director who was

a professional poker player. So, you know, you got to figure out what skills you bring to the table.

Carrie Casey (19:06)
Yes.

Yep, yep. ⁓

Meghan (19:10)
Sometimes you need that poker

face when you're talking to families as I...

Kate Woodward Young (19:14)
Yeah

Carrie Casey (19:14)
Yeah. And so her

name is Terry.

Kate Woodward Young (19:18)
was thinking how to plan the world's most rememberable staff meeting. I that's really what I was thinking. I'm like, and we can play some poker out. We could have some poker fun with a staff meeting. ⁓ I don't think she's ever done that, but that would have been an interesting case for how to share your skill set.

Meghan (19:24)
Also, yes.

Carrie Casey (19:37)
Yeah, but all of us have skills that are just what we do. We don't, it's not conscious that we're competent at it, right? You just do it. I don't think about embroidery when I'm doing embroidery. I don't think about running front of house at a theater. You know, like there's things that I do that I don't think about. I don't think about public speaking. I just go do it. But if I'm looking for a mentor,

in another area other than the areas that I'm competent in, then I go, what of the things that I can do could I share with that person? Because you don't want to feel lopsided, because if you feel like you're the only one receiving in that situation, you're going to behave differently and you're not gonna show up as your full self.

Meghan (20:27)
Yeah, I think that's important. I think it's kind of good to do a self-reflection audit of like, where are the skills that I want to lean into? Like for me, public speaking is something I'm trying to take on more of this year. Look, I'm here on a podcast, I'm crushing it. This is something I'm here of. And so when I'm thinking... ⁓

Carrie Casey (20:42)
Woohoo! You're doing it!

Kate Woodward Young (20:47)
You're also doing

a workshop and we'll drop the show notes in for that.

Meghan (20:52)
Well,

Carrie Casey (20:52)
I'm

Meghan (20:53)
you guys can

find me at NCCA and the NECFA conference in March. ⁓ Yeah, but all that to say, like that's maybe an opportunity for me to find a mentor who is very comfortable or very skilled in that area because it's just giving me anxiety to think about it, but I can do it. I can do it.

Carrie Casey (21:13)
It's three X, you'll be fine. I can help with that. I can definitely help with that. So that's what I think makes the best mentor relationships. I my mother is a horrible teacher, but an amazing mentor. And those are different skill sets. So when somebody's like, can you teach me how to run a close knit?

Meghan (21:30)
Hmm. I agree.

Carrie Casey (21:41)
business with a close knit community, she might say yes, but she would be lying. She does not know how to teach that, but she has mentored a lot of people into how to do that ⁓ by helping the people in her business and in other businesses that she's supported over the years.

Meghan (22:02)
It sounds like being a mentor is maybe a lot of just listen, not a lot, but yeah, primarily listening, right? Like I had somebody reach out to me ⁓ in the last year asking me to be their mentor. So talk about like the feeling like, wait a minute. I can't do that because I'm looking for a mentor myself.

Carrie Casey (22:21)
Okay.

Meghan (22:26)
But it was somebody that I had worked closely with in my past and I of course was like, yes. And they were doing a very different industry. So I have no background in that field that they were moving into, but I was able to just kind of like bounce ideas off. Have you tried this? Have you tried that? Have you leaned into this connection in your network that I know that you're close with? And yeah, I totally agree with what you're saying that it's just, it's they're very different skills of teaching and mentoring.

Carrie Casey (22:54)
Yeah. And.

Kate Woodward Young (22:55)
All right, so I'm going

to challenge everybody who's listening to go get one and go be one because we all need a mentor or somebody in our world. And sometimes these mentors don't ever have to be somebody you actually had a real conversation with. Carrie and I talk about this where we would identify people as mentors, but it's entirely because we've read their books, listened to their podcast, watch their Ted talk. And we feel like

we've used them as mentors. Now they don't have a clue who we are. Like we are like just because we count them as a mentor doesn't mean we've ever had a real conversation, which is also a little weird when you do meet them in person. Cause now all of a sudden like, you know, everything there is to know about them.

Carrie Casey (23:40)
I'm never gonna meet Julie Louis Dreyfus. She could just stay a mentor, a virtual mentor from having listened to her podcast. don't ever need to meet her in person. That would freak me out. Yeah.

Meghan (23:43)
you

You get all starstruck.

Kate Woodward Young (23:58)
But we have had people do that with us where they will start coming up and having conversations with us because they've listened to our podcast for seven years or they've heard us at workshops or both or they've read our book or any number of those and they think we know who they are.

And we don't.

Meghan (24:12)
my gosh, well you are

your true celebrities in the field. When I first met you, everybody was like, they're the ones from the podcast. You have to meet them. Okay.

Carrie Casey (24:15)
I don't think

Yeah

Kate Woodward Young (24:25)
⁓ yeah, so we, we, we still have some of our own version of imposter syndrome and so we've helped people start a podcast. We help a lot of people write their first book, not because we woke up one day and said, this is what we want to mentor people on. Never.

Carrie Casey (24:40)
It was, yeah,

it wasn't a plan. It was that people needed it and we have that skill and so we help people do it. And sometimes it's informal and sometimes they pay us and there's a whole range in there, right? But I think it is our job as

leaders in an industry or just as human beings who have skills to share those skills and then to find other people who are above you on the skill chart and go seek wisdom from those people. We need to be sharing the wisdom and we need to be seeking the wisdom because we want to continue to grow and develop and we want our industry to continue to grow and develop.

Kate Woodward Young (25:27)
And with that, I'm going to say go to childcareconversations.com and subscribe to our newsletter. If you don't know, we have a newsletter that comes out twice a week because we drop an episode twice a week. And we would love for you to be able to hear, get some behind the scenes notes. Like after today's call, you will be able to learn all you've ever wanted to know about Megan.

Meghan (25:52)
You

Kate Woodward Young (25:52)
in today's

show notes and some of that might sneak in to the newsletter for today's episode. So we hope to meet you at an event soon or a conference soon. Like Megan said, she will be in Memphis in March. And if you have part of our, if you are part of our podcast newsletter list, you've probably seen the up and coming list between now and July. Lord help us.

Meghan (26:19)
Yeah.

Kate Woodward Young (26:19)
And

we hope to see you. And if you do come up and say hi, make sure you tell us that you listen to our podcasts. We always love to meet new folks. And with that, we will talk to you in a couple of days.

Meghan (26:29)
Thank you all for having me.