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Introduction
Saroo is the protagonist of the film Lion, where his story of being lost and away from his biological family at 5 years of age marks a different lifestyle and development as part of his adoptive and international family. During early childhood, children are supposed to have a good nutrition, to be advancing their motor skills, to be protected from any injury or harm, to create the concept of who they are, and to be egocentric, which is one of the most common characteristics of early childhood according to Piaget’s Preoperational Stage. Yet, Saroo’s early childhood was marked by a rapid maturation due to the necessity of survival out of poverty.
Saroo’s Early Childhood
Even though the story is mostly centered on Saroo’s journey for his identity, most of the events that give rise to his decisions and actions throughout his Emerging Adulthood are from his memories of his early childhood. While he was with his biological family during his first five years, he used to do activities that interfered with the normal biosocial, cognitive and psychosocial development of a child. The socioeconomic status and Saroo’s family structure forced him and his older brother to replace school and social time with their responsibility of helping their single mother to provide with basic needs, especially with food for them and younger sister. These responsibilities decreased his opportunities to have a good nutrition and a low percentage of “injury control practices by his caregiver (his mother)”, (Berger K.S., 2019, pp. 197- 219) to protect Saroo and his siblings from any harm.
In case of his physical health, Saroo’s socioeconomic status did not allow his family to obtain and consume the adequate amounts of calories and nutrients; most of the time his family and he only had the opportunity of one meal per day. This resulted for him and siblings to be malnourished seen on their underweight and lack of height growth. Besides this, Saroo and his siblings could not go to school limiting their chances of improving their language learning, social and basic academic skills that can be learned and enhanced in an educational environment through “child or teacher centered programs”, (Berger K.S., 2019, pp. 221-245). Considering that early childhood is a sensitive period for language learning because children are like sponges making language comprehension, grammar and vocabulary an easy task, attending school or receive some education accompanied by techniques such as scaffolding where the “learner receives temporary support aimed to help the learner master a task in a given learning process,” (Berger K.S., 2019, pp. 221-245) is essential for their cognitive development, but Saroo’s mother does not know how to read or write creating a difficulty for Saroo to receive proper or no educational guidance in addition to no school time. These disadvantages mean more problems for Saroo to be exposed to because if he goes outside the region they live, as it happened when Saroo got lost, he will not be able to communicate properly considering that he only speaks one language in a country where there is diversity in language and his vocabulary is not fluent. Thus, when Saroo is lost and, in the orphanage, he is told about his adoptive family, the orphanage staff taught him a new language in a teacher-centered program and “fast mapping” or relating the words learnt within a category or specific object to identify them. (Berger K.S., 2019, pp. 221-245). Later on, when he is adopted, he forgets about his first language due to not practicing or being exposed to it frequently.
Even though Saroo did not have the time to do social playing or to interact with children with the same age as him, he had his older brother Guddu, who not only was his playing partner but also his mentor in social and cognitive learning. As Vygotsky mentioned “cognitive development is embedded in social context at young age” (Berger K.S., 2019, pp. 221-245) while Saroo and his brother were working, his brother will guide, motivate and do the same things as his little brother with the instructions that they needed to follow for them to "succeed” at their work. For Saroo, his only opportunity to socially interact and learn how to control his emotions was while working with his brother. Saroo also felt proud on telling his brother how stronger he has become to help him. As a child in early childhood, Saroo’s has “more control and agility with his gross and fine motor skills” (Berger K.S., 2019, pp. 197-219), therefore, when he tells his brother that he can resist and carry more things, Saroo is saying the truth. An example of his fine motor skills improvements occurs when Saroo is going to be adopted, he is taught how to eat with cutlery.
It is an important to Saroo that his brother knows his new skills because this makes Saroo proud for his new achievements and willingness to help his brother more. This is an example of Erikson’s third developmental stage of “Initiative Versus Guilt” (Berger K.S., 2019, pp. 247-269). Saroo is proud of his new abilities and his optimism about him doing bigger things avoid him to realized that even though he is stronger than before, he still cannot do everything. Erickson emphasized that in this stage children that this protective optimism helps them to try new things and to encourage their personality or “self-concept” (Berger K.S., 2019, pp. 247-269), and his perseverant, which is part of early childhood biosocial development (Berger K.S., 2019, pp. 197- 219), to hear from his brother that he can assist his brother with him more responsibilities.
On the other hand, at age five Saroo showed signs of Piaget’s Preoperational Stage through his egocentrism. As Piaget stated on Chapter 9, “in this stage children think and see through the word entirely from their own personal view” (Berger K.S., 2019, pp.221-245), for instance, when Saroo was asked by a police officer what is his mother’s name to tell her where her son was, Saroo only answered with “mum”. His mother’s name is “mum” because that is how he calls her.
Though Saroo and his brother were doing the work of an adult by helping their mother to provide for them and sister their basic needs, they had a good and healthy relationship with their biological mother. Regardless of not seeing their mother often because of her work or the two older siblings’ jobs, the mother was always attentive to everything that was related to her children. She would talk to her children about their day and ask them how they were able to bring food to their home, and even if they were not always near her to see if they were in danger, the mother would tell them to protect each other from any harm, which from what it was portrayed in the film, this rule was her number one. There was a scene where Saroo was injured while he was in his home with a watermelon, and when he finally reached home, his mother was concerned that her son Guddu did not take care of Saroo as she told them to protect each other. On page 255, chapter 10, Diana Baumrind’s parenting styles established that Guddu and Saroo’s mother is an authoritative parent because she “is nurture her children, flexible, but she also sets limits” (Berger K.S., 2019). Guddu’s and Saroo’s mother knew that she could not be present to protect her children while they were working at different places, therefore, she did her best to communicate with them every time they were together and to tell them that protecting each other is her only order for them.
At the same time, when Saroo meets his adoptive parents, both of their parents are authoritative caregivers. For Saroo’s adoptive parents, communication and honesty among them is important, particularly for the mother because she tells Saroo how much he can trust in her, but also, she has a set of rules and the most obvious is that she and her husband do not tolerate disrespect and want their children to treat each other with love and kindness as much as they do to the children. For instance, when Saroo was an adult and looking for his biological family, he had a bad discussion with his adoptive brother, that made his adoptive parents upset because they do not want their children to treat each other badly nor to be disrespectful. On the same note, when Saroo was being distant from his family, his mother reminded him precious is for her to let him know that communication, honesty and trust are extremely important for her, thus, she does not want Saroo to hide anything from her and that he should not feel afraid of telling her anything considering that she will not judge him.
Both mothers and adoptive father treated Saroo with love, signs of affection, and let respect, which are qualities of an authoritarian parenting style. Despite being raised by adoptive parents from a different country, culture, and language, Saroo never showed signs of misbehavior and felt secure and confident with his new adoptive parents. Instead of not accepting his adoptive parents, Saroo adopted himself rapidly to his new family, culture and language, and he was never anxious or afraid to share, talk and show affection to his family.
References
Berger, K.S. (2019). The developing person through the lifespan (11th ed., pp.197-269). New York: Worth Publishers.
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