Growing up in the same neighborhood for eighteen years can truly shape a person. I know this because I experienced it firsthand. I was only five years old when we packed up our belongings and moved right down the street. I do not remember a lot about the first house although, according to my parents, there was never a dull moment. I still remember the day we moved into my new house, the one my parents and sister still live in today. I had just started kindergarten, and I remember feeling anxious the entire day just wondering what was waiting for me at the new house. Was it big? Did I have a trampoline? What color was my wallpaper? The moment my mom picked me up from school that day I was suddenly relieved from all of my worries. I knew the
When you are growing up your surroundings influence your decisions, whether it be family members or your environment. “On the Sidewalk Bleeding”, “Father and Son”, “The Hunger Games” and “Remember the Titans” showed me how surroundings can influence how you grow up whether it is for better or for worse.
The environment of a person can change in size, depending on the considerations and is a main determinant on how a person behaves. The resources in the environment can be used for different ideas causing many roles, activities, and behaviors to occur. In order to use a person’s surroundings in the best way possible with the top behavior, the context needs to be fully understood (Law et al., 1996). The environment that Sam was around encouraged him to receive new jobs and meet new people. Other than Annie, Sam’s old neighborhood did not consist of outgoing people which did not support Sam’s role as a caretaker (DeLuca et al. & Nelson, 2001). When he moved closer to Lucy’s foster family, the neighborhood was very open and friendly. There were people walking constantly and the houses were in a small community, making it easier for Lucy and Sam to see each other (DeLuca et al. & Nelson,
Thesis: Growing up in a certain neighborhood doesn’t have to determine where you go in life.
Children who grow up in small towns often desire nothing more to leave the place they are confined to. Everything is remarkably mundane, strikingly predictable, and they yearn to feel the thrill of the unexpected that living in a city provides. However, there are key life lessons one can only experience in a small town. With just over 4000 inhabitants, one cannot make a trip to any store without meeting two, or ten, familiar faces. Constant interaction makes a person uncomfortably friendly. They are willing to talk to anyone sitting on a bus, waiting in line, or standing in a bathroom. In addition, these circumstances foster a trusting nature. In fact, there are few people in a small town that could not be trusted. Of course, the trust and friendliness allowed for a lot of freedom as a child. Parents never thought twice about allowing a child to venture out with friends or spend hours running around playing make-believe. Children have to supply their own entertainment, only increasing the independence they have. While they spend their lives wishing to get out of that town, they grow up to realize how it truly impacted the person they have
It’s the people you share it with, and the experiences you have in common. Everybody in Houston will remember Hurricane Harvey, just like everybody in Burns Flat will remember our first days of sixth grade, and the immense terror we faced the first time we had to walk to the high school end of the building. It’s these shared experiences that I can always relate to, that makes Houston and Burns Flat the two best homes I could ever ask to grow up in. Even though these two cities have seemingly nothing in common, I will always consider each of them to be the place that helped me grow into
It was a beautiful, sunny day in South Florida. I was six years old, playing by the pool with my new puppy. I loved swimming in the pool almost every day after school. I also enjoyed going out on our boat after school or crossing the street and going to the beach. My father came home one evening with some interesting news. Now, I do not remember exactly how I felt about the news at that time, but it seemed like I did not mind that much. He had announced that we were going to move back to my birth country, Belgium. I had been living in Florida for five years and it was basically all I had known so I did not know what to expect. I had to live with my mom at first, and then my sister would join us after she graduated high school and my father finished settling things. I remember most of my earlier childhood by watching some old videos of me playing by the pool and dancing in the living room. It seemed like life could not get any better. However, I was excited and impatient to experience a new lifestyle. I realized that I could start a whole new life, make new friends and learn a new language. Belgium was not as sunny as South Florida but it has much better food and family oriented activities. Geographic mobility can have many positive effects on younger children, such as learning new languages, being more outgoing, and more family oriented; therefore, parents should not be afraid to move around and experience new cultures.
Every new graduated high school student wants to get out of their parents’ house. They want independence, and to feel like they are going somewhere in life. Well, that’s what I thought. Moving out was the hardest thing I had done so far. I had just graduated and was barely making any money but I thought oh well so many people move out this young I’m just going to have to work harder, maybe skip school this semester until I can get on my feet to take classes. I knew all too well that I wouldn’t be able to afford it on my own, so I asked my best friend if she wanted to live with me. Little did we both know that living with another person would be a very different experience then living with our parents. We had plenty of fights over messy rooms, the empty fridge, empty bank accounts, and annoying neighbors.
It was the weekend and my dad was gone for the weekend. It was October and very close to Halloween. Me, my friend Tre, and his auntie Stephanie went out to get pizza at papa johns.
There are many different aspects of environment that can affect the development of children. One major environmental impact that influences the development of a child is the neighborhood they are raised in. Within the neighborhood there are several other aspect of influence. Where a child is raised can affect their behavior, attitudes, emotions, personality, values, health, and so much more. This can be seen in their personal lives at home to their social lives around others in classrooms. The affects of a child’s development due to their environment can be seen in both a positive and negative aspect. The neighborhood that a child is raised in can be very critical in their development. It may have a significant effect on what he or she becomes in the future.
Everything seems like it’s falling out of place, it’s going too fast, and my mind is out of control. I think these thoughts as I lay on my new bed, in my new room, in this new house, in this new city, wondering how I got to this place. “My life was fine,” I say to myself, “I didn’t want to go.” Thinking back I wonder how my father felt as he came home to the house in Stockton, knowing his wife and kids left to San Diego to live a new life. Every time that thought comes to my mind, it feels as if I’m carrying a ten ton boulder around my heart; weighing me down with guilt. The thought is blocked out as I close my eyes, picturing my old room; I see the light brown walls again and the vacation pictures of the Florida and camping trip stapled to them. I can see the photo of me on the ice rink with my friends and the desk that I built with my own hands. I see my bed; it still has my checkered blue and green blanket on it! Across from the room stands my bulky gray television with its back facing the black curtain covered closet. My emotions run deep, sadness rages through my body with a wave of regret. As I open my eyes I see this new place in San Diego, one large black covered bed and a small wooden nightstand that sits next to a similar closet like in my old room. When I was told we would be moving to San Diego, I was silenced from the decision.
If you ask anyone what home means to them more than likely you’ll get several different opinions. In my case home has never been a specific place it’s always been wherever my mom was! My Mother and I have been moving from place to place ever since I could remember.
On the other hand the neighborhood I live in now isn’t much of a neighborhood at all, it’s just a street that has multiple apartment buildings. I feel more as though my apartment complex is an entire neighborhood in itself than my street or my town actually is. There’s also upsides to a living so close to your neighbors such as you’re able to ask them for anything you might need and you’re able to get to know them on a more personal level. In my other neighborhood we also knew each other, but people didn’t seem to see each other as often or interact as much because everybody was so distant from each
In my opinion, Brooks-Gunn’s argument that the aspects of your environment influences your development is a valid one. In my neighborhood, my peers were wonderful. Before I met them, I would typically just stay inside and watch television or play video games, and when I became friends with them, they would convince me to withdraw from my house to play with them daily. They convinced me to go to the park, play sports, or go on adventures through the neighborhood with them, and we would play outside from sunrise to sundown everyday. Thanks to my peers, I feel that I became more
Have you ever had to move somewhere completely different at a young age? Perhaps somewhere you didn’t even know existed? As a
Especially if my parents were to relocate to a low-income neighborhood, I would not have been the same independent, intelligent black young women I am now. I grew up in a middle-income neighborhood in a nice condominium. We had great neighbors that helped one another other out through any situation. According to Vox, they stated "Neighborhood plays a huge role in social mobility, they find — around half the size of the role that parental income itself plays. Moving a child from a neighborhood in the bottom 25 percent of the income distribution to the top 25 percent, they found, yields hundreds of thousands of dollars in lifetime earnings. The statistics rate goes to show that neighborhoods do have an impact on the individual whether you are a child, teenager or adult and it does affect how the individuals will intake in the neighborhood