Category Archives: Parenting

Ethical Issues and Dilemmas, Families in Society, Internal Dynamics of Families, Interpersonal Relationships, Parenting

Jane the Virgin

Title: Jane the Virgin

Date: 2014 – Present

Media type: Television

Format: Episode

Rating: TV – 14

Audience(s): High School Age, College Age, Adults, Parents, Couples

Language: English

Film/Episode Summary: Jane the Virgin is an American comedy-drama television series that premiered on The CW on October 13, 2014. The series follows Jane Villanueva, a hard-working, religious young Latina woman whose family tradition and a vow to save her virginity until marriage is shattered when a doctor mistakenly artificially inseminates her during a checkup. To make matters worse, the biological donor is a married man, a former playboy and cancer survivor who is not only the new owner of the hotel where Jane works, but was also her former teenage crush. Jane the Virgin also explores issues of immigration, raising children, and parent-child relationships between adults of all ages, and young children.

Places to view: Youtube, Amazon Video, Vudu, Google Play, Jane the Virgin, Hulu

Contributor: Mikayla Perrault

Health and Human Sexuality, Human Growth and Development, Internal Dynamics of Families, Interpersonal Relationships, Parenting

Easy A

Title: Easy A

Date: 2010

Media type: Film

Format: Clip

Rating: PG-13

Audience(s): High School Age, College Age, Adults, Parents, Families

Language: English

Film/Episode Summary: The film follows 17 year-old Olive (Emma Stone) who tells her best friend a lie about losing her virginity to a guy in college. While telling her friend this, a conservative, christian girl overhears Olive and spreads the rumor throughout the school. Later, Olive confides the truth about the lie with her friend Brandon who then asks her to pretend to have sex with him so that he’ll seem straight. She agrees, and soon her promiscuous reputation grows. She embraces this new reputation because boys are giving her gift cards to say they slept with her to increase their reputation, but problems arise as this continues.

Clip Description: Olive interacts with her parents in such a healthy way. There is love, connection, humor, and support that all make their relationship work. They seem to be able to talk to each other about anything, but while simultaneously allowing each other to keep things private if they want.

Comments or Recommendations for Teaching: I would use this clip to showcase parenting that encompasses high levels of warmth and demandingness. Also, to showcase healthy communication between adolescent and parent.

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

Contributor: Cameron MacKinney

Parenting

Boyhood

Title: Boyhood

Date: 2014

Media type: Film

Rating: R – Restricted

Audience(s): High School Age, College Age, Adults, Parents, Families

Language: English

Film/Episode Summary: Coming of age story. The joys and pitfalls of growing up are seen through the eyes of a child named Mason (Ellar Coltrane), his parents (Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke) and his sister (Lorelei Linklater). Vignettes, filmed with the same cast over the course of 12 years, capture family meals, road trips, birthday parties, graduations and other important milestones.

Comments or Recommendations for Teaching: Because this film spans 12 years with the same actors – it lends a better view of the progression of early childhood to launching not just from the main character’s point of view, but the changes in the family as well. Though it is a fictional story, the relationships developed between the actors as a result of filming together over more than a decade is much more authentic (and the actors themselves have said that they felt like a family experiencing changes and milestones together.) The film covers the typical coming-of-age tropes, but also examines single parenting, co-parenting, divorce, remarriage, blended families, parenting styles, identity development, mid-life crises, launching, relocation, drugs/alcohol/experimentation, domestic abuse, etc.

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

Contributor: Kim Kieffer