Marriage, family, and career development in life planning

Marriage and the Family

When studying the dynamics of marriage, family, children, and all the interactions and psychological components that go along with being a family, there are decisions that must be made in that milieu that hold enormous importance. Those decisions should be based on a firm knowledge of what parents are supposed to do when it comes to children; what married people are supposed to do when it comes to their love and relationship; and what the family is supposed to do when it comes to being part of a neighborhood and of a community. This paper is a personal reflection on those dynamics but I zero in on the psychological needs of the child, no matter how successful the marriage is or isn't. In fact, when things are not going well in a marriage or a relationship that has produced a child -- or when the child has special needs that the parents are not able to provide -- and that is where I will come in when I complete the required degrees and training to become a child psychologist. This paper is about my career goal and how I can be important in the life of a child with special needs.

My Story and My Goals

I am determined to become a child psychologist because I had an eye-opening, wonderfully positive experience a few years ago; I supervised a group home with children who had developmental disabilities. In the process of my supervision and of getting to know these children, I came in close contact with the psychiatrist working with these children. The long, substantive conversations we had regarding the emotional and physical health of these children was in effect my brush strokes across my future life's canvas. Many colors and shades went onto that canvas and now I am taking the courses required to get to my goal, and the brush strokes are very steady and I am on a course with a compass to guide me.

In the most classic formula for Americans looking to paint a portrait of a best-possible future, individuals make themselves available for potentially close and meaningful connections with others. They use a specific formula as they seek happiness, using positive brush strokes on a canvas that reflects their visions for their most positive future. Whether gay or straight, the American person available for a relationship initially seeks and then finds romance. Following romance a deep sense of love is expected to follow. That emotion is followed by a period of courting which is followed in many cases by an official engagement and the various celebrations associated with future nuptials. Lastly in this preliminary scenario for life-long happiness, in most cases there is a wedding -- although according to Pew Research Institute, the number of couples who were married in 2010 dropped "…a startling 5%" from 2009. Americans are not only getting married "less frequently, they're doing so later in life," the data shows (Hallett, 2011).

So let's assume a loving couple (man, woman) does get married and within a year and a half their first baby is born. The child seems very normal in all respects but within a few years it is clear there is something psychologically and physically wrong with the child. Before the child is old enough to attend preschool, the parents witness serious problems with their little boy. The scholarly literature describes ADHD as developmentally "inappropriate levels of inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity" (DuPaul, et al., 2013, p. 57). The symptoms appear typically at a young age and the boy, Charles, is exhibiting the unmistakable symptoms, as other children (between 2% and 6%) are known to exhibit in the United States.

The behavior is not specifically antisocial at this point but it is serious because scholars that have researched ADHD know that young children with ADHD have a "…higher than average risk for the development of more serious antisocial behavior including conduct disorder" (DuPaul, 57). That conduct disorder means that not only are there going to be problems for that child in certain behaviors in terms of impulsive behaviors -- and they also may be at "heightened risk for bone fractures/head injuries, burns, and accidental poisonings" -- the academic skills so necessary for a child to develop as a normal adult may be challenged as well.

This is where a child psychologist might enter the picture, and I see myself as fitting in well. I am from a loving family myself, and while we had our problems (as any family does) we were able to heal when there was an emotional injury, talk when there was a need to sort out feelings, and understand one another even in the heat of a crisis. Of course doctors and trained healthcare professionals have a lot of experience in dealing with and helping children that are ADHD. But parents are so very important as part of the solution as well, and I am powerfully driven to be trained to help parents as they seek to help their developmentally challenged child.

DuPaul writes that parent-implemented interventions are absolutely imperative in terms of first understanding what is going on with their child, and secondly, to be able to use "strategies to enhance early academic skills and reduce accidental injuries" (p. 58). Home-based interventions -- which I will be trained to provide leadership for -- involve training parents to be teaching alternative skills to their ADHA child on a consistent, regular basis.