Tag Archives: middle childhood

This Is Us

Title: This Is Us

Date: 2016

Media type: Television

Format: Episode

Rating: PG – Parental Guidance Suggested

Audience(s): College Age, Adults, Parents, Couples, Families

Language: English

Source: Hulu, NBC

Film/Episode Summary: An American TV Series that is aired weekly on NBC, characters in a family find themselves venturing through experiences from childhood to adulthood, all the while trying to define what “family” truly means.

Comments or Recommendations for Teaching: The show introduces a family in the mid seventies, a white American couple who decided to start a family and ended up pregnant with triplets. Unfortunately, the couple lost one of the babies during the delivery. When the father was looking over the two who were healthy, he saw that one African American baby was next to them, and asked who he might be. When the father found out he was just dropped at the hospital, abandoned by his biological father, he took matters into his own hands and adopted the child as their “third.” When the family took the three newborns home, they decided to call them “The Big Three” one of the first types of dynamics within the family that the parents subconsciously implemented.

Source: Hulu, NBC

Contributor: Lillian Wiener

Cheaper by the Dozen

Title: Cheaper by the Dozen

Date: 2003

Media type: Film

Rating: PG

Audience(s): Children Under 12, High School Age, Parents, Family

Language: English

Film/Episode Summary: Cheaper by the Dozen follows Tom and Kate Baker and their twelve children as they move from a rural Illinois town to a suburb of Chicago. Tom gets his dream job as a college football coach, and Kate, a retired journalist, gets her first book published. As their work schedules intensify, Tom and Kate’s presence at home decreases, and their family life becomes increasingly chaotic, which forces them to learn to balance their work and family life in order to foster positive parent-child relationships.

Comments or Recommendations for Teaching: For portrayal of Family Stress and the ability to overcome it, Authoritative Parenting Style, parenting different age groups-adolescence, middle childhood, early childhood, How to juggle work and family

Places to view: Youtube, Amazon Video, Vudu, Google Play, Itunes

Contributor: Sarah Ambrose

Kramer v. Kramer

Title: Kramer v. Kramer

Date: 1979

Media type: Film

Category: Parenting, Human Growth and Development, Family Law and Policies

Keywords: parent-child relationships, types of parents, fathering, middle childhood, family law

Rating: PG

Audience(s): Children Under 12, High School Age, College Age, Adults, Families

Language: English

Film/Episode Summary: Joanna Kramer leaves her husband and 7-year-old son for 18 months. Film characterizes the development relationship between father and son and portrays a custody fight and resolution in the best interest of the child.

Places to view: Youtube, Amazon Video, Vudu, Google Play, Itunes

Contributor: Libby Balter Blume, PhD, CFLE