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How do family dynamics affect child development
Five effects of family dynamics
How do family dynamics affect child development
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The influence family members can have on the development of a child is enormous; they can either mold a healthy mind or drive a child toward darkness. Jennifer Egan’s Safari is a short story that highlights the different relationships in a family with a complicated background. Rolph and Charlie come from a divorced household and join their father, Lou, and his new girlfriend, Mindy, on an African safari. As the events of the trip unfold, Lou’s children experience a coming of age in which they lose the innocence they once possessed. The significant impact of family dynamic on children’s transition into adulthood is presented in Safari. Jennifer Egan uses Mindy’s structural classifications of Charlie and Rolph to demonstrate how Lou and Mindy’s relationship hinders the maturation of the two kids. Jennifer Egan’s use of structural classifications about Charlie’s role within her family displays the reason for Charlie’s …show more content…
Rolph is introduced as an innocent young boy early on in the story. He “doesn’t speak up all that often” (1) and is “too young to notice” (1) the extremely sexual relationship between Mindy and Lou. The generalization Mindy brings forward for Rolph is “structural affection” (5) in which Rolph “will embrace and accept his father’s new girlfriend because he hasn’t yet learned to separate his father’s loves and desires from his own” (8). Rolph’s fragile depiction foreshadows the importance of nurturing vulnerable children. If a child is already susceptible to emotional confusion or damage in their youth, it is important to provide them with an extremely positive upbringing to give them confidence to make their own decisions as they mature. In the case of Rolph, however, he does not receive the support he needs to make a healthy transition from childhood to
The two stories “War” and “About Effie” from Timothy Findley’s Dinner Along the Amazon are both told by the same child narrator, Neil. In each of the stories Neil attempts to make sense of a mystery of the adult world. In “War” Neil tries to understand the adult world of war, and explain why it seems that his father has betrayed him, and in “About Effie” Neil tries to understand the mystery of Effie’s strange need to wait for a man in a thunderstorm. Neil reaches an understanding of each of these mysteries in a similar way: through observation of non-verbal clues from adults. However, Neil’s own attempts to communicate non-verbally through his behaviour are unsuccessful. Taken as a whole, these two stories show how very important non-verbal communication is in child-adult relationships.
In American homes, a traditional family consists of a mother, a father, and some children, who are all siblings. In these families, the parents try to guide their children on the “right” path and each child is equal in their parents’ eyes. In Sierra Leone homes, their traditional family is very different. It will have a single biological parent, an uncle, an aunt, or a community member as the head of the house. There will be many children, but most will not be siblings. While these guardians will also be caring, they will not have the time to help each child with every little problem. The aunts or uncles may pick a favorite to focus their time on, often one who is their own child. These two types of families create interesting children, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
There are so many things I like about Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, it’s difficult to figure out where to start. There are many characters in the novel, and I can only think of a handful whose lives aren’t intricately laid out for the reader. Not only are these characters interesting and full of life, but they are all intertwined with one another throughout. The novel jumps through time to each of the characters in various points in their lives, in a way that highlights the peaks and valleys of their lives.
In a normal functioning family, both parent and child care for and love one another, and display these feelings. A parent is required to nurture his or her child and assure that the child feels loved by spending time together, and by giving the child sufficient attention. However, there are often times when a parent is unable to fulfill these requirements, which can ultimately have damaging effects on the child. A child who is neglected by his or her parents “perceives the world as a hostile and uncaring place. In addition to this negative perception of the world, the neglect a child faces affects later interaction with his or her peers, prompting the child to become anxious and overly withdrawn” (Goldman). This neglectful type of parenting proves to be a pattern in the novel Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, as the main characters, Jimmy, Crake, and Oryx are crucially affected by their parents’ choices and are unjustly abandoned by them. In this novel, the neglect of parents, especially mothers, is clearly reflected in the behaviours of the three main characters.
Charlie’s story began with the surgery, the biggest decision he made in his life. Although he was a guinea pig in the procedure, he wasn’t worried at all about the surgery, but rather on becoming smart as fast as he could. Supposedly these doctors were doing Charlie the greatest favor he would ever receive, and he was so eager to learn as much as he could. Soon however, Charlie would encounter challenges he never faced with the intelligence of a 6 year old. Before his surgery, Charlie had great friends in Miss Kinnian and the bakery workers. After the surgery the relationships between Charlie and everyone he knew would take a drastic turn.
After reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, a novel that exposes the short life of Chris McCandless and the clues to the mystery of his untimely death, we as readers can comprehend and fathom the actions and thoughts of Chris McCandless if we are able to perceive and distinguish the characteristics and results of a family that is dysfunctional. More specifically, a dysfunctional family in which there is an authoritarian parent that greatly impacts the life and actions of the other members in the family. This parent may employ a perfectionist attitude on the children which can be debilitating in the long run. The lack of proper parenting can force children to take up nontraditional roles to facilitate proper family functioning. This unnecessary
In the excerpt from the book Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively, a story is told from the perspective of a brother, sister, and a mother. Lively utilizes diction, imagery, and personification to set up a complex relationship between the characters. The short story illustrates how dynamics of a family are viewed differently depending on the person.
Cognitive development is where children start to become aware of their surroundings and become familiar with different things. Cognitive development plays enormous roles in a child’s growth into adulthood. In the story, Crews mentions that his first memory was around ten years before he was born, and the memory takes place where he has never been and involves his daddy who he never knew. One of the most important stages of cognitive development is sensorimotor stage. During the sensorimotor stage, children are only aware of the things they see, do, and the physical interactions with their immediate surroundings. Also, according the “The Role of the Father in Child Development”, it suggests the father-child separation period starts at the early age of nine months. Although the narrator was only 18 months old when his father died; he was still unable to make that immediate connection that a child needs from his father. Crews started a quest to find his father’s love; however, he never got a chance to complete. According to “The Role of the Father in Child Development”, the presence of a male model other than a father (e.g. an older brother) may inhibit the negative effects of a father’s absence Biller (1968, 1971a) argues that the father is a superior role model. All fathers are held to a superior role in every child’s life. Fathers are often the superhero that a little boy would like to be. The author always yearned for that superior male figure in his life. Crews’ father lived a life which consisted of drinking, fighting, working long hours, and influencing others to live the same lifestyle. The writer began to question the choices that his father made after he was convicted of his transgressions. Because of the actions of his father, Crews questioned what an ideal father should be and how it impacted his life in a negative
“The Pain Tree” written by Olive Senior tells the story of a woman who comes back home after many years and begins to think about her childhood in a new light, which changes much of what she thought she knew of her family and childhood. The story shows the main character, Lorraine, revisiting the memories of her family and the woman who had taken care of her as a child, Larissa. Children mainly focus on the happy memories which may be tied to more important topics that they do not understand until they are older. Most children do not pick up on many of the complicated things happening around them. Lorraine can now see the bigger picture of her relationship with Larissa and how large the divides were between Lorraine’s family and Larissa’s
In John Connolly’s novel, The Book of Lost Things, he writes, “for in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be”. Does one’s childhood truly have an effect on the person one someday becomes? In Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle and Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner, this question is tackled through the recounting of Jeannette and Amir’s childhoods from the perspectives of their older, more developed selves. In the novels, an emphasis is placed on the dynamics of the relationships Jeannette and Amir have with their fathers while growing up, and the effects that these relations have on the people they each become. The environment to which they are both exposed as children is also described, and proves to have an influence on the characteristics of Jeannette and Amir’s adult personalities. Finally, through the journeys of other people in Jeannette and Amir’s lives, it is demonstrated that the sustainment of traumatic experiences as a child also has a large influence on the development of one’s character while become an adult. Therefore, through the analysis of the effects of these factors on various characters’ development, it is proven that the experiences and realities that one endures as a child ultimately shape one’s identity in the future.
In “A Long Way Gone”, we follow a twelve-year-old African boy, Ishmael Beah, who was in the midst, let alone survived a civil war in Sierra Leone, that turned his world upside down. Ishmael was a kind and innocent boy, who lived in a village where everybody knew each other and happiness was clearly vibrant amongst all the villagers. Throughout the novel, he describes the horrific scenes he encounters that would seem unreal and traumatizing to any reader. The main key to his survival is family, who swap out from being related to becoming non-blood related people who he journeys with and meets along his journey by chance.
In “The Secret Lion,” Alberto Alvaro Rios establishes the theme as loss of innocence in a young boy. The narrator brings to life a boy who must leave behind his youthful perceptions about girls, the arroyo, and his green haven. All preconceptions are shattered, and each glimpse of bliss is taken away. Through this the boy gains perspective, and begins to see the world with a new awareness. Rios ingrains the loss of innocence theme through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy who exhibits maturity, autonomy, and disillusionment.
The fictional life and death of a twelve year old little boy named Robert is vividly articulated in this moving tale by Thomas Wolfe. The reader learns of the boy’s life through four well developed points of view. The reader’s first glimpse into Robert’s character is expressed through a third person narrative. This section takes place on a particularly important afternoon in the boy’s life. The second and third views are memories of the child, through the eyes of his mother and sister. His mother paints the picture of an extraordinary child whom she loved dearly and his sister illustrates the love that the boy had for others. Finally, an account from the narrator is given in the ending. It is in the last section of this work that the narrator attempts to regain his own memories of his lost brother.
Antwone Fisher was an individual that endured so many things. He faced a lot of challenges that may have seemed impossible to recover from. This story was an example of the many things that some children may experience. Antwone was not raised in an upper crust home. He did not grow up in a home in which his mother and father was present. Instead of having positive role models, he had to live with individuals that were abusive to him. When observing Antwone’s personality, one may refer to two different theorists such as Bandura and Rogers.
Nonetheless, this really is a tale of compelling love between the boy and his father. The actions of the boy throughout the story indicate that he really does love his father and seems very torn between his mother expectations and his father’s light heartedness. Many adults and children know this family circumstance so well that one can easily see the characters’ identities without the author even giving the boy and his father a name. Even without other surrounding verification of their lives, the plot, characters, and narrative have meshed together quite well.