Videotape Don Delillo Summary

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Every once in a while, a person encounters a child who always speaks their mind and seems to not have a single amount of regret for their action. This is what the reader can see in the short story “Videotape” by Don DeLillo. The viewer can be able to comprehend this in the story when it explains, “they break every trust… catching Mom coming out of the bathroom in her cumbrous robe and turbaned towel…” (DeLillo, 1994, p. 76). It is easy to spot how a child’s thinking can run wild when having the small power of holding a video camera. Even in the story, the reader can spot it with the details being described as the child records aimlessly. Not a word was spoken, but the tension can be felt just by reading it, giving the way the child carelessly …show more content…

Others believe that the children are too young to understand the trauma that is occuring to allow it to affect their lives and minds. It is common for adults to mistake the symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder in children, such as hyperactivity and lack of attention, as ADHD due to their closed minds. Dr. Nicole Brown has done research on misbehaving pediatric patients and why despite, “referring them to behavioral therapy and starting them on stimulants, it was hard to get the symptoms under control” (Ruiz, 2014). This quote shows that when the children with these symptoms were diagnosed with the heritable brain disorder, ADHD, and given treatment accordingly, they did not respond as they should have. This means that ADHD is not the correct diagnosis. The children she has recorded the research over all encountered three or more traumas, such as abuse or life in a foster home, where only one third of these children truly had ADHD rather than post traumatic stress disorder (Ruiz, 2014). Post traumatic stress disorder is possible and even plausible in children that fit the requirements despite what others may

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