Documentary Film- 7 years PDF

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Psych 2237 April 2019

Age 7 in America Documentary Film Each child in the film was unique in their own way. There was so much diversity in the group, ranging from different ethnicities to different SES backgrounds, there was a homeless child to children from very wealthy families. I was able to see how each individual child’s development was most affected by their parents parenting style and their financial status. The two children that stood out most to me were Luis and Kenisha. At age 7 Luis states that he lives with most of his extended family, consisting of about 11 people. By 14 you see how he’s basically taking on the role of a parent to his younger siblings. Physically he’s at a disadvantage since he’s been raised in poverty, his nutrition is probably a lot of fast-food/cheap unhealthy food. Luis’s personality from a young age has been centered around his survivability. At age 14, you see how Luis’s temperament isn’t what you would expect. He loves his mom even though she’s a drug addict, he states “things were bad before, but they got better … things are bad now, but they’ll get better” he still has hope for his family. At 21 you see how he’s joined the army and has had a girlfriend for 5 years and he still dreamed of keeping his family together. Luis’s poverty-stricken upbringing developed who he was. He always saw the value in family. At age 14 you see him as the “father-figure” and you see his love for his mom. At 21 you see him again trying to keep his family together although his mother never showed up, he still had made that first effort to get everyone together. Before this though, Luis had to make a decision to try to keep his family together/stable or to get his own life and career stable first and

then reach out to help his younger siblings. He chose to join the army and get his own life together first. Kenisha was raised in the projects of Chicago, you see how she’s aware of the safety in the projects at the age of 7. By the time she reaches 14, her mother has already moved out of the projects and Kenisha commutes 45 minutes to go to a school outside of that neighborhood. According to Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, if a child is brought up in an environment where the parents have the best interest of the child in mind, and the parents play an active role in the child’s life, then the child is most likely going to have better physical, cognitive, socioemotional development. When you compare Kenisha to Leroy, a boy who stayed longer in the projects, you see how Leroy has developed differently—his parents never made the move out of projects to give Leroy a better chance/more opportunities. You next see Kenisha at 21, with a child. At the end of the film you see how she’s turning her back on her past and moving to Texas to study and make a better life for her and her daughter. Through watching the entire documentary Luis surprised me the most. His selfless love for his mom at 14 surprised me, he had every right to dislike his mom for having him be put in foster care but his way of seeing things were different. He was grateful that his mom went to rehab and got them back. It showed me how although you have all the odds against you, it doesn’t mean you have to fall to those odds. A child still has their own way of surviving/being successful despite the way they were raised. Having wealthy parents, and private education definitely sets you up with an advantage but as I saw in the documentary those children went

through the same adolescent-thinking of turning their back on their childhood and “finding themselves”....