One of the worse cases of child abuse has been the case of Genie. Genie was living in a room in her parent’s house for over 10 years; this is a case of severe isolation. To point out, Genie would be punished for making any noise while she was in that room, and because of this she never learned to talk. She was also strapped in a potty chair for the majority of her early life, which resulted in poor motor functions and her inability to walk normally. According to a phycologist on Genie’s case, a person can experience symptoms of isolation after only 15 minutes. I was surprised that Genie could have withstood these adverse conditions for more than 10 years. Socialization and social interaction became a challenge Genie and her peers had to face following her rescue.
By growing up in isolation during an individual’s crucial learning years, Genie had no idea of self and the concept of generalized other. According to Charles Horton Cooley, a sociologist, self “emerges from our ability to assume the point of view of others and thereby imagine how they see us.” In this
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According to Conley, socialization is “the process by which individuals internalized the values, beliefs, and norms, of a given society and learn to function as members of that society”. In other words, socialization allows an individual to operate affectively in society. Genie was socialized by the leading agent of socialization: family. I was disturbed by how her father locked her up and did not treat her as if she was human. As a child, she was socialized not to speak, and later upon entry at the the children’s hospital, she was resocialized to speak and become a member of the total institution she was living in, the hospital. In detail, Genie learned how to eat, speak, walk, and progressed her motor skills, and she later followed the norms adhering to the
Genie Wiley, is one of the many cases of feral children. She was locked in a room for her whole childhood, with little to no contact with anyone other than her abusive father. The effects of her isolation were catastrophic and virtually impossible to reverse. Genie “Wild Child” Wiley, is a case where nature took over in a nature vs. nurture stance.
It is important to appreciate that these issues are very complex, and to be familiar with how abuse and neglect can affect various aspects of a person's life. Child abuse does not affect every person the same. The extremity of the abuse and different situations determine the effect. Some people could live on to become great people and do great things. They don’t look at the abuse as something negative but rather as something that made them strong and made them believe that they were better and could do better than the situation that they were in. Dealing with abuse after it is over is the toughest thing to handle, most people that could afford therapy go to it, but since most people can‘t afford it they try to deal with it the best they can. Although in most cases the child is removed from the home that the abuse is happening in, sometimes child abuse can slip by unnoticed and that can have severe consequences on the child as well as others.
Nova’s, Genie Secret of the Wild Child, is a forty-three-minute documentary that explains how being abandoned can affect one’s life and their learning capacity. Throughout the documentary, we take a look at the life of young teenage girl from California. She was locked in a room alone by her parents. When the girl was found she was thirteen years old and unable to walk, talk, or use the bathroom properly. Due to the fact that the young girl had no human contact she was called the “Wild Child.”
However, the therapy sessions would be beneficial to them as it will enable them to develop certain behaviors for overcoming the disorder (Gehlawat, 2015). It may take long therapy session for such people to be helped since it involves identifying the things that make them behave in that inhuman way and again analysed how those behaviors could be changed to something beneficial for their child. Also, during such period of therapy, it is advisable that the child or the victim should be placed under the care of another guardian. This would help the person concentrate on her recovering and also prevent the victim from further abuses. The child is recommended to be placed under foster care for that period which would also be beneficial on his or her
On November 4, 1970 in Los Angeles, California Genie’s condition was brought to attention by a social worker. The worker discovered the 13-year old girl in a small, dimly lit, confined bedroom. An investigation by authorities exposed that the child had spent most of her life in this room and typically was tied to a potty chair. Genie was found in diapers because she was not potty trained. Her case is an example of extreme isolation from human contact, society, sunlight, and any other environments besides her room. The deprivation of attachment showed when she was timid to humans, almost afraid. Someone whose life was a developmental nightmare could not possibly be expected to have the basic trust that the world is trustworthy and predictable. The life she lived was incredibly horrifying as morals, and psychology portray just how severe the consequences were on Genie.
...ears of Genie’s life in the ‘light’, scientists were giving her an immense amount of attention because of the lack of communication skills she had. They had great imaginations, as to what was going to be learned from Genie and language development. Through Genie, scientists were glad to announce they had found a “critical period” for learning language. This critical period is vital if children want to learn how to speak. Despite everything we could’ve continued to learn, Genie’s mom was not allowing any further testing. She was allowed to see one single person, but no tests were to be taken. Eventually, Genie left to live with her mother, figuring out that she couldn’t care for her. She was then placed in different mental institutions, and foster homes. The last report of Genie is 2008 living in California in psychological confinement (Newton) (Gazzaniga) (YouTube).
However, it is reassuring and amazing to see Genie’s progress in learning and acquiring new skills. It provides an insight on the brain’s ability to continuously learn and adapt despite harrowing deprivation and abuse. It is a great book on the discussion of nature versus nurture. Overall, I viewed the book as a deeply sad story with a major theme of child abuse and it impacted my life in many ways.
The way others view us is how we gain a self-image of ourselves and Cooley referred to this concept of self-imaginary as the looking glass self. Cooley suggested that the looking glass self does not come singly from how we view ourselves, but the perceptions that we think others have of us through the three different approaches: first is how we appear to others, what others think of us, and we then revise how we think of ourselves. When we analyze the three steps internally we begin to change the way we act change the way we
The rescue of Genie lead to studies of research involving the sociological aspect of human development and behaviours of an individual who was secluded from society. Evidence throughout the film presents the ways in which Genie faced a barrier between herself and the cultural dynamics of language. The lack of socialization in maintaining a sense of self as well as social isolation, and the effect of microstructures that had restricted the growth of meaningful relationships.
One of the feral cases is that of Genie. This is a girl who was severely abused by her family especially her father. Genie’s father consistently punished her through beating to an extent that she could never have a chance to exercise things as a normal human being. The situation was even worse due to the fact that Genie was kept in a close room right from when she was an infant up to the age of 13 years. By that time, Genie had developed a severe abnormality. Her behavior and physical functioning of her body was completely like that of a less human being. She was speechless, could not construct a two word sentence and demonstrated no sense of personality.
Her special education teacher, Butler, decided to foster her and give her a stable life. Butler thought that Genie was being experimented on too much and refused to let the researcher from the children’s hospital visit Genie. Ironically, the researches couldn’t have that, so the children’s hospital people decided that Butler’s care was unfit. Genie was then sent to live with one of her psychologists who acted as her father, therapist, and researcher. This is where ethical lines are seriously crossed in my opinion. Genie stayed with them for four years until their grant money came to a halt. Once the money ran out, they gave her back to her biological mom! This is beyond my comprehension that a therapist would be so heartless as to toss away this child just as she was gaining some normalcy because his grant money stopped coming in. Genie had already been through so much and yet people were willing to give her back to her biological mother. I think this would have been extremely triggering and regressive for Genie’s wellbeing, but I’m not a therapist yet, so what do I know. After a short time living with her biological mother, Genie is put into foster care because she is too much to
Imagine the trauma of being a child separated from all you know – parents, possessions and home – and not having anything to cling to for comfort. Sadly, each year, hundreds of thousands of children here in the United States must be rescued from severe abuse, neglect or abandonment. Traumatized and facing an uncertain future, they frequently enter foster care, crisis shelters, domestic violence and homeless shelters with nothing – no favorite stuffed animal, no special blanket. They are afraid, disoriented, and desperate for comfort. These children are most often placed into the foster care system. There are many people that think that the foster care system is in place just too correct bad behavior of misbehaving youth. However it is not always
A normal child develops in a variety of domains that are closely linked with each other. They influence and enhance each other so that the child’s growth and progress are balanced (Blank & Berg 5). Unfortunately, the circumstances faced by feral, isolated and confined children do not give them the same opportunities as normal children to have such a balanced development. Feral, isolated and confined children are those who have spent a substantial amount of their formative years away from normal human contact. Feral, wild, or wolf children are children who grew up in the protection of animals. Isolated children are those who grew up on their own in the wilderness, while confined children are those who were brought up without contact with any other people and under very deplorable situations. Whereas the circumstances of feral and isolated children are mostly unintentional, the cases of confined children are usually prompted by neglect or abuse by other people. The observations made on these children have helped in demonstrating the effects of lack of social interaction on normal growth and developmen...
George Herbert Mead was a philosopher and social theorist who was born in South Hadley, Massachusetts on February 27th 1863. His theories, mostly, consisted of human development within a society. Mead attended the University of Harvard where he received his Masters in philosophy and sociology. Mead is widely recognized for his theory of development of self and his concept of “I” and “Me.” The concept of the “I” and the “Me” refers to how we act and respond. According to Mead, the “I” is a reactive response whereas; the “Me” is a developed response. Meads concept of self and his theory of the development of self are well exhibited by the character Genie in the film, Genie: Secrets of a Wild Child.
The video reveals a story about so called The Wild Child, Genie Wiley, and her involuntary 13-year isolation from socialization and any kind of interaction. Genie was subjected to living–like a prisoner–in a bedroom of her family’s home located in a suburb of Los Angeles. Her father instructed other family members not to interact or even speak with the poor girl. Over the years, such a prolonged isolation wreaked havoc on the development of the young soul. From a young age, Genie’s lack of social exposure drastically limited her cultural learning and ultimately led her to exhibit behavioral traits such as of a feral child raised in the wilderness.