Essay On Analysis Of The Movie ‘I am Sam’

Introduction:

Individual development is a long term procedure that starts when a child is born till h/she is in h/her adulthood and till h/she is dead. Each individual has different developmental abilities like physical, social and psychosocial that are evolved through out that person’s life. Physical developments entail hair growth, change of voice, weight, increase in height and much more whereas cognitive capabilities of person are developed during h/her childhood when h/she is capable of making decisions. Psychosocial development encompasses how a person acquire different skills or attitudes that are influenced by the social environment and impacts the personality of the individual. Middle childhood involves the ages between six to twelve where a child is in h/her crucial human development stage. The middle childhood stage transforms from infancy and transitions in to teenage years that in which a child is distinct on the bases of h/her attitude, behaviour, personality and skills (DelGuidice, 2018). The children entering the phase of Middle childhood are faced with different environmental setting and structures in which they are expected to get familiarize with. The children during this stage are starting their education (National Research Council, 1984). This essay will analyze the movie I am Sam through the three developmental domains (physical, cognitive and psychosocial), the essay will argue few events that took place in the movie that had an impact on the character’s life development. The character chosen for this essay is Lucy.

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The story of the movie revolves around an elderly man who is mentally handicapped and his daughter who is seven years old. Both of the characters have a good relationship despite of the fact that the father is mentally disabled however, the story changes when Lucy is taken by a social security worker. The father, Sam fights for her daughter’s custody and through his love and compassion wins it in the end.

Cognitive Development is one of the three developmental domains that is analyzed on the bases of some life events that has an impact on a person’s development. This developmental process involves a child to take decisions about certain tasks during sports, art, education and other phases of a child’s life (Burnik, 2014).  The changes in behaviour of the children during middle childhood is another cognitive development in this stage of a child’s life. These changes include accepting the interpersonal roles of a society, how to interact with others and make decisions on their previous knowledge regarding that issue. Moreover, children during this stage start their schools and interact with children similar to their age. Furthermore, the children during this phase learn to acquire new skills and abilities that fascinate them (Feinstein & Bynner, 2004). There are different events that take place in the movie where cognitive development of Lucy has been highlighted. The first event that has been seen as a cognitive development is her ability to create artwork, taking interest in music especially playing piano that is taught by her Godmother, Annie. The interest in art came from her father as she saw her father making paper origami throughout her life. She loves to listen to music and Sam, her father gave examples of a famous rock band, Beatles. He gave life lessons through giving examples of famous musicians. Through that she loves to listen to music, Sam’s friends also have an impact on Lucy because of them she interacts with other people that are of her age or elder than her. It has been reported that music has a significant influence on interpersonal, personal and logical growth on young people and children (Hallam, 2010). The impact of music is significant on Lucy’s life development, apart from music her decision-making skills are also evolved. For example, when both the characters are reading a story book at night before sleeping but Lucy tells his father to stop reading so that she isn’t sleepy in her class or isn’t late to her school. However, her father insisted on reading the book as he was comfortable with it so Lucy lets him read it. This shows that Lucy at a young age makes decisions for her father as he has a mental capacity of a seven-year-old.

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Psychosocial development is the amalgamation of two words that is psychology and social. This developmental process entails that how a child’s personality is impacted through the social environment or the social surrounding (Boyd & Bee, 2009). The psychosocial developmental process was given by Erik Erikson who states that if a child during middle childhood experiences a victory h/she evolves a sense of capability whereas if h/she isn’t successful that child feels a sense of failure and experiences lowliness (Poole et al, 2007 as cited in Burnik, 2014). According to Green, Kalvaitis and Worster (2015), the surrounding of a child evolves in a different setting than that of an adult during h/her adulthood and in different sociocultural setups. Educationalists have an extraordinary responsibility in detecting and guiding the desires of every child during Middle childhood as each of them evolves in a more positive surrounding through development of their own identity. The significant event that shows a psychosocial developmental process which impacts Lucy is when her friend comments on her father’s disability. He says that “your father is a retard”, because of this Lucy feels that her father is different from other fathers and says that she was adopted and Sam is not her real father. Other significant event that forces Lucy to say that she is adopted is when her father is dressed up as a musician and when is his playing his plastic guitar everyone in the room laughs at him. Due to this Lucy hides in the group of children so that she isn’t teased. Moreover, Lucy has an interest in art and in one of the scenes, Lucy drew a sketch of her and her father where she is bigger than him. This shows that how she makes decisions for him and she does things that are in the comfort zone of her father instead of her being comfortable. Another significant event that can be related to a psychosocial set up is when Sam comes to visit his daughter and Lucy pretends to go to the washroom but comes back to the room and manipulate her father to go to the park. Afterwards, she convinces Sam to not get off the bus and stay in the bus until the last stop. This shows that Lucy cannot live without her father and that she doesn’t accept that she’s under the authority of child care services. This also comes under cognitive development as when Lucy sees an opportunity, she decides to make use of it and unite with her father.

The last developmental process that has a significant impact on the child’s development is the physical developmental process. The physical process includes growth and motor development, the former entails increase in height, weight, body hair and much more where as the latter includes the increase in the efficiency of walking, running and playing sports (Burnik, 2014). It has been also reported that a child’s motor skills can also be influenced by cognitive development (Zeng, Ayyub, Sun, Wen, Xiang & Gao, 2017). The physical development process impacts the development of Lucy in an event that is appropriate to this process is when in the last half hour of the movie. Lucy learns that her father has shifted near her foster house so every night she climbs down the foster care house through her room window and walks all the way to Sam’s apartment. She then climbs up to his father’s apartment through a ladder and sleeps with him until her father brings her back to her foster care home. This indicates that Lucy is in that age where her motor skills have heightened and makes quick decision to meet her father. This also have cognitive development, when she decides to meet her father regardless of the time. As she is happy so her physical activity is heightened so to fulfill her happiness she walks to her father’s apartment.

Conclusion:

From a person’s birth till h/her death that person is developing through different developmental process. Many events have an impact on a person’s development all throughout h/her life. The developmental process encompasses physical, social, personal, environmental, cognitive, psychosocial and many more processes. A child is most impacted through different events that occurs in h/her life. A child during h/her Middle Childhood phase has been transformed from an infant and will transition into a teenage. The Middle Childhood phase is important as it allows the child to accept what is in h/her environment, connects with it and ultimately accept the social constructs. This essay talked about a character, Lucy who was impacted by significant events during her Middle Childhood that are analyzed by cognitive, physical and psychosocial developmental processes. The story revolves around her and her mentally handicapped father. The essay discusses how was her life impacted through different events and how did she faced every event and how did her behavior changed towards every challenge she faced.