TITLE: Resources for mathematics advising.
QUESTION [157 upvotes]: This question is possibly ill-advised.  (If it is not right for this site I will delete it.)
I, suddenly, have students.
It is very clear to me that there is nothing in my education that has prepared me for the task of training graduate students.
Yes, I know that graduate school is the place where one finally assumes full responsibility for one's own mathematical progress.  It is also equally clear to me that there are innumerable things that an advisor might do, unwittingly, to irrevocably damage the career of their own student.  This is keeping me up at night.  And unlike searching for advice on, say, parenting,  it appears that most people keep their opinions on the process to themselves, especially with respect to issues specific to training mathematicians.  The more senior people I have approached have generally told me that "things work themselves out".
I see people I know, not so much younger than me, for whom the job market is not working itself out.
I was very lucky, and as a result I have many questions about things I didn't deal with myself.  I don't know how to strike the balance between a doable research project and a significant one.  I don't know how to help students move from reading background into exploring on their own.  I don't know when and how much to help when they are struggling, or what to say when they become unhappy about their progress.
And I don't know where to find resources to do so.  As I've said, sometimes I don't know that people take my concerns seriously... my own mentors deal with students at an n'th rate university, rather than an 8n'th.
Any direction would be appreciated.
(This question is anonymous, but not for my own sake.)

REPLY [3 votes]: Section 2B of Indiana University's How to be a Good Grad Student is Advice for Advisors. The first half of this is very generic, but there are good specific bits of advice in the second part. Also, I think giving your student booklets like How to be a Good Grad Student would probably also help them.
Since the OP mentions that he's new to advising, perhaps The Assistant Professor's Guide to the Galaxy would be helpful. Despite being a guide to the galaxy, it's only 6 pages long, and only section 7 has to do with advising. This section focuses more on what grad students can do for you, but does have one concrete suggestion:

In my personal work with students, I set goals for them and insist that they document their progress with draft manuscripts. My work with them on these drafts often leads to conference papers. My students always publish before they finish, sometimes jointly with me and sometimes on their own, depending on the degree of my own involvement.