How do family dynamics affect the way we make decisions in the future?

Hello, welcome to my Blog. My name is Riko, I am from Japan. I’ve lived in Australia for 6 months. Though living in Australia, I found a lot of different things between Japan and Australia. However, today I am going to focus on family and family dynamics.

At our age, there comes a moment when we have to think about the reality of our futures, however this sometime comes with problems. For example, family dynamics. Of course, you can choose your future by yourself, but your parents definitely can have a big opinion of what you do with your future.  This is shown when Gordie’s parents are hesitant and dismissive of his dreams of becoming a writer. So, we are often left without much say in where we take our futures as we grow up, as we find it vital to respect and honour the expectations of our parents. As we become more and more aware of the decisions we are now making as young adults, we can begin to see the differences in experiences that come with varied family dynamics. For example, in the film “Stand by me”, Chris struggles to think about his future as his family are bad role models. He comes from a broken home of alcoholics and criminals, so everybody assumes that Chris will be a criminal too.

It is hard for children to think about their future when they are influenced by their parents.

Gordie’s parents don’t pay attention to Gordie. Further, his dad said to him “He is not good” (video 1, 1:00~), so he thinks his dad hates him. Since Gordie is heavily influenced by his parents, his dad’s disapproval makes him think he is a bad writer (video 2). Gordie’s character symbolises to the viewer that when parents have a particular idea about their child, it is hard for the children to think of other opinions.

video 1

Video 1 shows us that Gordie is heavily influenced by his parents, especially his dad. His dad thinks Gordie should have died instead of his brother. This thinking has affected to Gordie. That’s why he said “it should’ve been me”.

I don’t want to be a writer. It’s stupid. It’s a stupid waste of time

video 2

 

Even people outside of your family can affect you

Chris is influenced by the thoughts of people outside of his family. As I said, he comes from a broken family, so everybody assumes that Chris will be a criminal. Chris and Gordie talk about going to junior high school, but they have very different futures, Gordie takes a college course, and Chris takes a shop course (video 3). Also, when Chris talked about the milk money story, he said “It’s what they think of me. I’m just one of those Low-Life Chambers Kids” (video 4). These videos show us that people outside of his family affect Chris, even when he thinks about his future. That’s why he wants to go someplace where no one knows him (video 5). If he does that, he could do everything he wants.

You’ll be taking college courses, and me, Teddy, Vern we’ll be in the shop courses.

video 3

video 4

I just wish I could go someplace where nobody knows me

video 5

Text to Self and World:

So far, we have looked at how the family dynamics affects children, starting with “Stand by Me”.  What we learned from this film is that the environment in which children are born and the thoughts of their parents influence their thoughts and influence the way they think about their future.

Relationships between parents and children are different in Australia and Japan. For example, my mum has said to me that “I am not good enough.” My friend in Japan, her mum has also said the same things to her. So, before I came here, I thought that’s normal. In Japan, most parents have strong opinions about their children’s future, so they try to influence their children to follow these beliefs. When children don’t listen to their parents’ opinions, parents tell their children that it is perfect, even if it is not.  However, in Australia, I think parents never say, “you are not good enough.” Parents in Australia, try to listen to their children’s opinions more carefully than parents in Japan.

I strongly believe that parents should not make decisions about their children’s future, and children should make the decisions about their future by themselves. This blog has taught me to think about how family dynamics can affect children when they think about their future.