I have been in bed sick all week watching re-runs of old shows I used to love when I was growing up. One of the shows I have been re-watching is 7th Heaven. No matter how old I get every episode of 7th Heaven seems to teach me a lesson or open my eyes about something. One particular episode I came across seems to tie into what we are covering in class this week. If you have never seen 7th Heaven it is a family show about the Camden's, where dad is a Minister, and mom is a stay at home mom to five kids (two on the way at the moment). The dad, Eric, is always 'fixing' people and their problems and they both seem to always have a 'feeling' when something is going bad.
In the episode that ties in to this weeks lesson, Eric's son Simon is in middle school and has a new girlfriend. His girlfriends Ex-boyfriend, Johnny, gets quite jealous and comes to Simon at school one day threatening to shoot him with a 33 special, and gestures with a fake hand gun. At the same time there is a new video game out called BOOM BOOM that all of the kids are playing where they shoot and blow people up. Eric calls the school about the threat and is told that nothing can be done until the next day and that he should probably not worry because 'they are only in middle school', 'it probably sparked from the video game', and he is probably just trying to 'scare Simon to break up with his girl'. After getting a police friend involved Eric finds out that the boy Johnny has a record that the school somehow over looked. They take a trip to Johnny's house to confront him and his parents about it only to find that Johnny lies about everything and his father denies everything. It is evident that Johnny's father is consumed with his work and does not see that his child is struggling and does not pick up on any signs that he could hurt himself or someone else. His room is full of warning signs like pictures of people hurting animals, dark comic books, etc. His dad goes to meet with the school and denies everything saying they are just accusing his son for no reason, and that he has to get back to work and leaves... showing there has not been any previous parent/teacher/school board relationships. In the end, Johnny goes the church with his fathers gun and shoots the Minister in the shoulder and running away. The cops get him to confess and he is then sentenced to live in a juvenile type place under guidance of the law until he is 25.
(Sorry for the long read!) This story shows how everything in an individuals surrounding environment affects them. If Johnny had received more attention at home or even at school from his teachers maybe this would not have happened. If his father had been more involved in Johnny's life, less in his work like, and more with Johnny's school, maybe this would not have happened. If Johnny had not been obsessed with the BOOM BOOM video game, maybe he would not have gotten the idea to actually play with a gun. Now obviously this could have easily still been the outcome from Johnny, but if things played out differently in his environment and his personal life, maybe it would have been different.
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