Regional Foram Posting Assignment Sample

Introduction Of Regional Foram Posting Assignment

Parent-child relations are essential to grow a person to any stage and learn the value of life. These are illustrated in a form of literature that also provides a perspective on the politics between children and parents and their bearing on character development. This essay will explore parent-child relationships from Hunt (2023), with the dual purpose of literature being ‘instruction and delight’ and Benjamin Zephaniah’s Coming to England (2020). The essay will analyse the nuances in the interaction between parents and children in these works and look at the influence of family dynamics, parents' roles, background cultural contexts, and developmental challenges these bear on the main characters. Moreover, it will also shed light on the complexities of parent-child relationships as well as explain the impact of family dynamics as protagonists.

Analysis of Parent-Child Relationships

Literature paints a mirror to society when it comes to parent-child relationships. According to Hunt (2023), literature plays a dual role in moral teaching and giving pleasure. The narratives often present the parents as the guides to their children's moral and intellectual development. In Coming to England, Benjamin's parents display affection through a disciplined relationship, expressing affection with expectations to form the protagonist with uplifted values (Zephaniah, 2020). While these relationships are particular to context, taken together, their relationships bear universal attributes of care and guidance and occasionally disagree.

Parents and children get through their interplay on a continuum of feelings, which include trust, frustration and dependence. Often a symbol of the transition from childhood innocence into adulthood, this duality of support and tension becomes a central theme (Garlen et al., 2020). Hunt’s observations match how Zephaniah pictures where parental impact can make or break how prepared a kid is to confront difficulties, such as migration and cultural misunderstanding.

Much like the usual theme in literature, parental figures are not limited to the role of protectors in Zephaniah’s relationship with his parents. In Coming to England, Benjamin learns so many important lessons from his parents, and parental guidance in literature often acts as a way to develop moral development, as Hunt (2023) notes. Particularly his mother, whose methods might seem harsh might even sound authoritarian, but really her methods are for a reason. They constitute the pillar of Benjamin’s resistance and determination. The dual role of parents as disciplinarians and emotional supporters are also tightly woven into the fabric of Coming to England, and many immigrant families in the UK have to cope with such a predicament. Examining this relationship helps draw up a nuanced play of parents' cultural values and responses to the external pressures faced to form our children’s identity and moral compass. It makes it a powerful narrative to learn about how family and societal influences converge.

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Parental Influence on Character Development

On Coming to England, Benjamin Zephaniah’s parents played a major role in that they helped him, especially in terms of giving him an identity and forming a sense of being, because they made him strong indeed. Hunt (2023) speaks of parents' role in sowing values and teaching children a sense based on which the moral and emotional growth of children will take place. In Zephaniah’s case, his parents have undoubtedly helped him make his way through the often discriminatory, hostile environment in the UK. Benjamin’s parents, who struggled greatly with social challenges such as racism and cultural displacement, have emphasized the next generational importance of self-value and being tough.

Benjamin’s parents teach him how to form an understanding of self and private pride in his Jamaican heritage, which is vital as Benjamin faces the prejudices of British society (Dixon, 2023). According to Hunt (2023), parents are typically depicted as moralising adults in literature, and Zephaniah’s parents are no exception. They are the values they pass on to us (respect for the self, cultural pride, resilience) that will become the basis of the protagonist's actions when faced with adversity.

Much like the usual theme in literature, parental figures are not limited to the role of protectors in Zephaniah’s relationship with his parents. In Coming to England, Benjamin learns so many important lessons from his parents, and parental guidance in literature often acts as a way to develop moral development, as Hunt (2023) notes. Hence, his mother, whose methods might seem harsh, might even sound authoritarian, but her methods are for a reason: they constitute the pillar for Benjamin’s resistance and determination. The dual role of parents as disciplinarians and emotional supporters is also tightly woven into the fabric of Coming to England, and many immigrant families in the UK have to cope with such a predicament. Being able to examine this relationship helps draw up a nuanced play of the cultural values of parents and their responses to the external pressures faced to form our children’s identity and moral compass. It makes it a powerful narrative to learn about how family and societal influences converge (Durante et al., 2021).

Challenges and Conflicts in Parent-Child Relationships

Parenthood is often characterized by love and care, and even more so than this, parent-and-child relationships can also be plagued by tension and conflict, especially in multicultural and migratory contexts. Benjamin’s relationship with his parents is not flawless. Coming to England sees Benjamin grow older and growing trade, questioning some of their more traditional values. Zephaniah’s memoir is the story of a generational conflict that is all too common in migrant families: children born and raised in Britain or in a different cultural milieu challenging the ways of immigrant parents.

According to Hunt (2023), such conflicts in literature can be used to explore the richness of identity and personal growth. Zephaniah's case is between generations as his cultural background is from his Jamaican upbringing versus the British societal norm his parents have taught him (Green, Chuang and Goldstein, 2024). Further, when Benjamin tries to forge his identity, there are conflicts between his parent's expectations and his tries. There is a touch of generational conflict that is all too common among migrant families, having to find a way toward the same culture that many come out of while competing with the adaptation pressures of a new country.

Additionally, Benjamin’s desires for independence and increasing notions of self often pit in opposition to his parent's instincts to protect, making for further conflicts. Zephaniah’s memoir is a classic coming-of-age story of children of immigrants who try to find their own identities in a foreign land—untouched by their parents or doing the exact opposite. Hunt (2023) states that literature often portrays children as people who want to be free but such wishes to be free clash with the power of the parents trying to keep cultural traditions. This conflict is made worse by external forces racism and classism in Benjamin’s case, as his parents attempt to keep the external world away from him while growing up, and Benjamin fights to force himself and his people into a society unwilling to give him or them the same type of treatment. Benjamin's need for autonomy vs his parents' desire for protection creates dynamic new layers of tension in his relationship with his parents creating one of the many challenges that parenting in an immigrant family presents.

The Impact of Family Dynamics on the Protagonist

Towards the end of Coming to England, the story is dependent on the family dynamics of Zephaniah, which helps me in his development and his ability to challenge the challenges of migration and racism in the UK. Hunt (2023) explains that literature often witnesses family structures as they usually represent macro-social dynamics and microcosms of the entire society. To Benjamin, this is a family of love and support but also of outsiders wanting to fit in with the land they’re only called to. While he enjoys his parents’ love and support, they’re also his parents, and that means they’re protective and sometimes authoritarian, rooted in their Jamaican traditions, so there’s an extra layer of complication in that relationship with Benjamin.

The family's experience in the UK demonstrates how that adds to their cultural identity and family values in responding to external challenges such as racism and class inequality. One of Zephaniah’s narratives indicates that the family’s sense of unity and pride in their cultural background makes it easier to endure the social pressure in the UK, and the pair of his parents carry on the part of the society by providing him with those tools to cope. The family plays a vital role in Benjamin's ability to be resilient and later make it past all that Benjamin faces in British society (Friedman, 2025).

Benjamin also depends on family life to grow his emotional being because family is a place home to him, apart from the outside world. Zephaniah tends to seek solace and understanding from his family when things get more complex, emotional or racial than he has already tried. He thinks he can process his experiences because, even as his parents struggle as immigrants, they are emotionally close to him and allow him that. According to Hunt (2023), a lot of times, literature depicts how family shapes characters’ psychological and emotional development, such as how Zephaniah’s family’s perfect, unconditional support has enabled him to nurture the resilience it takes to struggle through childhood in a broken and discriminatory society.

Impact of Cultural Context on Parental Roles

Benjamin Zephaniah’s Coming to England examines some of the dynamics that fuel Zephaniah’s development and his resilience in the face of adversity, partly because of the happenings within his family (Alanoud Abdulaziz Alghanem, 2023). The family itself is imperfect, but Benjamin's family, without which he could not function, and its love is there. The love that his parents give him and the support of the way they deal with the very real world of racism in the world that he lives in it is all helping to make this way of life bearable. In Zephaniah’s memoir, the family dynamic is established as a stabilizing force so that Benjamin’s parents’ unconditional belief in their heritage and strong moral values swam off him in their home, Benjamin was less lost. This support system makes him feel worthwhile and have cultural pride even when dehumanized. Hunt (2023) also demonstrates that family dynamics often microcosmically mirror larger social structures. Zephaniah’s family’s resilience reflects the effort of the Jamaican immigrant community in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s. This is because Benjamin’s parents solidify his identification and belonging within British society's external pressures.

Benjamin’s emotional development relies partly on family dynamics because the family functions as a master against the outside world (Brundin and Languilaire, 2022). Zephaniah turns to his family during emotional turmoil or racial hostility for comfort and understanding. This close emotional proximity to his parents allows him to deal with his experiences even as they struggle as immigrants. Furthermore, the emotional strength of his family helps Benjamin navigate and, in some cases, overcome the difficulties in his personal or social life. According to Hunt (2023), literature generally shows how family members influence characters' psychological and emotional development, especially in Zephaniah's case.

Conclusion

In conclusion, coming to England explores the relationship between parents and children regarding their migrant ship and cultural adaptation in England. Through the autobiography of the writer Benjamin Zephaniah, the memoir focuses on how difficult and joyful it can be for those who grow up as the children of Jamaican-born immigrants in Britain. The narrative bears Hunt’s (2023) dual conception of literature as both instructional and delightful. Zephaniah’s family dynamics not only offer readers lessons on resilience, cultural identity, and positive functioning under the madness of circumstances but also play with the emotionality of family life. Furthermore, Zephaniah’s memoir shows the everlasting importance of the parents' influence and how the family style, made up of the environment, dramatically affects a child's development and self-awareness. This essay provided a brief explanation of different factors that hold a more significant influence on parent-child relationships.

References

• Alanoud Abdulaziz Alghanem (2023). Benjamin Zephaniah’s dub poetry and its appeal to children: an ecocritical reading. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 10(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02053-7.
• Brundin, E. and Languilaire, J.-C. (2022). When the display of emotion is not enough: An emotion boundary management perspective on the quality of strategic decisions. Long Range Planning, 56(5), p.102245. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lrp.2022.102245.
• Dixon, P.E. (2023). UBIRA ETheses - Death of the nine-night Jamaican heritage and identity crisis in response to changing death rituals. Bham.ac.uk, [online] 12. doi:http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/13411/7/Dixon2023PhD_Redacted.pdf.
• Durante, A., Ahtisham, Y., Cuoco, A., Boyne, J., Brawner, B., Juarez‐Vela, R. and Vellone, E. (2021). Informal caregivers of people with heart failure and resilience: A convergent mixed methods study. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 12. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.15078.
• Friedman, H.H. (2025). Leadership, Betrayal, and Forgiveness: Applying the Story of Joseph to Modern Challenges. Springer. [online] doi:https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5092305.
• Garlen, J.C., Chang‐Kredl, S., Farley, L. and Sonu, D. (2020). Childhood innocence and experience: Memory, discourse and practice. Children & Society, 35(5). doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12428.
• Green, D.S., Chuang, S.S. and Goldstein, A.L. (2024). Social Construction of Barriers or Challenges to Parenting: Black Jamaican Fathers’ and Mothers’ Perspectives. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 33(3), pp.998–1014. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-024-02811-4.
• Hunt, P. (2023) 'Instruction and Delight' in Leedham, M. (2023) 'Introducing literature and the child', in M. Leedham (ed.) Contexts and readers. Milton Keynes: The Open University pp.34-46