Analysis Of The Character Development Of Judd Nelson In The Movie Breakfast Club

Describe the character. Include general review of physical, cognitive, socioemotional and multicultural information. Describe why the character was placed in detention.
Consider the ways in which the character demonstrates “normal” physical development through the use of at least 2 peer-reviewed empirical journal articles (and your text). Note any ways in which the character does not fit the expected adolescent physical developmental milestones.
Consider the ways in which the character demonstrates “normal” cognitive development through the use of at least 2 peer-reviewed empirical journal articles (and your text). Note any ways in which the character does not fit the expected adolescent cognitive developmental milestones.
Based on theory and research, consider the ways in which the character demonstrates “normal” social development with the use of at least 2 peer-reviewed empirical journal articles (and your text). Note any ways in which the character does not fit the expected adolescent social developmental milestones.
Based on theory and research, consider the ways in which the character demonstrates “normal” identity development with the use of at least 2 peer-reviewed empirical journal articles (and your text). Note any ways in which the character does not fit the expected adolescent identity developmental milestones.
Considering the factors identified in the above sections, how would a professional counselor incorporate the developmental theory and research in their work with this client (character)? Be specific here. What might application of this theory and research look like in the counseling room?

Physical Development

Changes are always bound to occur throughout a person’s life. In this light, changes tend to happen from the point of conception and continue through to the moment of death. Life development stages are the basic process that implies both the physical and cognitive changes that occur through the entire life of a person. The movie Breakfast Club features various characters that undergo development stages throughout their lives. One such character who is not short of both physical and cognitive development is Judd Nelson. This paper proposes to critically analyze the development stages of life by using the character of Judd Nelson. The paper will achieve this by looking closely at various development stages such as physical development; cognitive development; social development; identity development; and implication for practice; the aspect of resilience; resilience for the minority; and personal reflection on adolescence.

In the movie, all the characters involved had been sent to detention for different reasons. However, Judd Nelson was detained for pulling a false. This was measured by the fact that he had pulled a fire alarm. The paper will look at Judd Nelson’s development by looking at the mentioned developments. In this light, physical development of a character is the overall process that often starts in the infancy of a human and continues further to the adolescent. Consequently, the process continues on a concentrating on a rather the fine and gross motor skill in an individual (Belton, O’Brien, Meegan, Woods, & Issartel, 2014). On the other hand, cognitive development is an entire process in the construction of thoughts that includes remembering, problem-solving a well as making decisions from the childhood stage, through an individual’s adolescence to adulthood. Socio-emotional development considered to be the overall physiological theory that the personality of a human developed through repeating series through crisis and resolution. Multicultural information is that information that is that is incorporated through ideas and cultural background.

Both boys and girls can start their puberty life at exactly the same time yet they end their puberty apart, yet still they can be considered to fall within what is mostly referred to as normal physical growth. However, the timing as well as the sped can vary due to the fact that they are well determined by the genes inherited from parents. Through Judd Nelson’s obnoxious pestering behavior, one is in a position of understanding that he is actually in an adolescent stage of his life (Colten, 2017). Although he is in the same age group as the others, he is tall and has broader appearance than his teens. Additionally, the movie defines Judd’s personality by a rather total compulsiveness, where he often alternate between being wisecracking and therefore ending up indulging his entire genuine anger where he delves into his overall messed up family life (Berk, 2017). By continually harassing a supervising teacher is a clear way in which Judd’s development stage is showcased. In fact, he shouted at Vernon and ended up being detained for the second time. His behavior showcased that of a teenager who was undergoing a total adolescence age. In the movie, there is a point where he jokes that he was going to urinate in the library summing up his development stage in being an adolescent person. On the other hand, he looks older than the other kids, with a rather long hair, grey coat, Denham jacket, and a hearing.

Cognitive Development

A person’s cognitive development is the ability or rather the overall construction of thoughts, process such as remembering, problem solving as well as decision making in a person all the way from adolescence to adulthood. Cognitive development is most build on how a person perceives, think, and gain understanding of one’s world through interaction especially of genetic learned factors.  Despite the fact that Judd Nelson was the antagonist character, he is the main reason why everyone ended up being friends. His character clashed with everyone at one point and therefore brings out the truth about his friends’ lives which made them to understand and better relate to each other (Turnnidge, Côté, & Hancock, 2014). Although he is unreachable, he learns that there are more people than he thought and empathize with them.

One of the most developments of the social attribute is the aspect of education. A person’s social development is well defined by the fact that a certain individual attends school or not. Additionally, social development can as well be determined by the way a person tends to interact with his or her family throughout a particular film. The writer of this film does not fall short in describing how Bender manages his social development or rather social interactions with others. One of the ways a normal social development of Bender is revealed is through his lack of seriousness in educational matters (Csikszentmihalyi & Schneider, 2017). In the movie, he is described as not caring much about his school life as well as his grades and thus he appears to on the first track of being a dropout. Nonetheless, he appears to be happy about his status in the society compared to his peers. In fact, he is seen as the main link between all the other kids in the detention and Richard Vernon. Bender’s relationship with his parents can as well be considered as a normal social development. When describing his relationship with his parents, one can no doubt feel sorry for him. He describes the abuse that he underwent from his mother and father (Verburgh, Königs, Scherder, & Oosterlaan, 2014). In the movie, Bender shows the scars to his friends illustrating where his father had burnt him with a cigar. In fact, Bender is rejected by both his father and his mother resulting in a heated argument that ended up creating a hostile environment. The development of Bender relationship changes when he falls in love with Claire. Despite the fact that Bender was known to be an abused person all day long, he turns out to be different in front of Claire. However, their relationship keeps on changing because at one point they are madly in love and at the other time they hate each other.

The question on whether development changes occur in youth has become a contemporary issue in recent times. Other people believe that this process is continuous and their effect on a person maturity is gradual. There are arrays of theories that have been used to provide important knowledge regarding identity as well as its development (Blum, Astone, Decker, & Mouli, 2014). While the forces of these theories are different, they all give something critical concerning human being development. In this light, social learning theory becomes relevant especially in defining the identity of Bender in the movie and how he finally collects himself in the social context (Sterdt, Liersch, & Walter, 2014). According to social learning theorists, self-concept is in most cases build with identification with a particular role model. Although Bender had a bad reputation, he started acknowledging himself (Holt, 2016). While the movie goes on, Bender seemed to keep on realizing himself even more. In this light, he gets to understand that in various ways that Andrew’s dada kept on abusing Andrew as well by forcing him to intensely compete against his personal will, something that they all bound over hating their parents.

Social Development

Furthermore, at the beginning of the story particularly in detention, they both thought their world were apart from each other only to realize later that they both had issues with their fathers (Khanlou & Wray, 2014). On the other hand, Bender does not harass Claire but instead understands her better while she understands him as well.  At the end of the story, Bender appears triumphant given the fact that he was able to win the heart of a girl who he had harassed most part of the movie. In this light, Bender is in a position of not only realizing himself but as well learning others identity and understanding them much better. The character seems not to be fitting in this identity adolescent stage dues to the fact that no one expects him to have a full understanding of what love means and falling in love so seriously. This is because, at such an adolescent age, most of the people of Bender’s age would lack understanding and patience in loving someone.

Counselors have often relied on theories of counseling especially those that have been largely unsupported by research and in most cases are composed as a result of a hypothesis that is considered untestable (Moffitt, 2017). In this light, there has been the use of various counseling methods as well as procedures that are not in any way capable of being evaluated in determining their effectiveness. The proposal that is contained in this paper argues that the overall effectiveness of the counseling process particularly for Bender could be increased through the application of different counseling procedures that are based on the learning theory (Babic et al., 2014). There are various clients’ problems that confront counselors every day and ranges from a simple day to day decision making to rather complex problems that are involved in neurotic conflicts. In this light, all the presented inorganic problems are similar in such a way that they are all problems involving or resulting from learning. There are various categories of problems that faced bender which in some way could be addressed in the counseling session.

The counselor can incorporate all the development theories by rejecting the importance of understanding, empathy as well as other counseling concepts, and instead point out that once Bender’s problems have been identified and well clarified, it must be resolved and come up with a solution for the identified problem. The work of the counselor is as well to make sure that Bender gets to understand how his problems are solved so that he can be a position of applying the solution to their problems (Simmons, 2017). In case there are those problems that have unique solutions, then the client, in this case, would have to depend more on the counselor. To apply the learning theory to solve Benders problems that range from social to physical development, the counselor has to come up with a set of goals particularly for the resolution of the available problems. In essence, there has been a long-lasting controversy among the counselors regarding the overall constitution of appropriate goals for a specific client. Despite the fact that there is no such a simple solution to the problems related to counseling, by learning theories has proved to be an essential consideration for the overall use in coming up with set goals for solving problems as presented in the character of Bender.  Apart from the selected technique, the counselor should allow Bender to accomplish his goals in a rather effective as well as suitable way possible.

Identity Development

Resilience especially psychologically is the overall ability of an individual to cop up with a difficult situation and therefore return to a pre-crisis status as soon as possible. The aspect of resilience is clearly shown in the movie by various characters. In Bender, there were some elements of resilience given the fact that he had been undergoing a lot of troubles at home where his father had occasionally beaten him up. In this light, Bender showcases resilience to fight through the pain that he was going through at home and therefore decides to tell his friends regarding the matter (Wang & Fredricks, 2014). Notably, this was an act of resilience because Bender had the courage of seeking advice from his friends and realized that he was not the only one undergoing the same problems as Andrew had initially suffered out of the hand of his father. However, there are some instances where Bender failed to be resilience and could have improved. Notably, this shows that Bender had a medium resilience factor. There are however some behavioral as well as social changes that could have improved Bender’s resilience factors. For instance, he had poor relationships with his peers and other people as evident when he was harassing Claire as well as irritating Andrew and he newly proved a fight. Additionally, he continued to mock Vernon’s clothes who in turn assigned him another weekend in detention (Esteban-Cornejo, Tejero-Gonzalez, Sallis, & Veiga, 2015). To be more resilient, a person is required to have a good relationship with others and therefore avoid some minor mistakes that could cause more crises. To be more resilient, Bender should have chosen to be part of the community by establishing a good relationship with others and avoid some sort of behaviors that lead to more harm (PYD, 2015). Moreover, it would have been important for Bender to understand that making mistakes is part of a learning process, and being a teenager, he was learning thus it was important if he reflects on his action to have a more resilience factor within himself.  

Among the various methods as well as theoretical models of studying ethnic youth, the variant of youth Ecological system theory is considered to best serve the overall basis of the understanding and thinking regarding resilience and strength in relation to the African American youth (Lee et al., 2014). In this light, positive, racial identity, as well as gendered is an important factor in the personal as well as the collective well-being of an African American youth (Zoogman, Goldberg, Hoyt, & Miller, 2015). For instance, in a communal or rather an extended as well as spiritual anchored social relationship across the diverse groups is an essential element in developing the resilience of the minority youth. An African American for that matter particularly the male adolescent who has a positive sense of himself often engages in a peer group. In most cases, these peer groups are self-affirming while at the same time viewing the female gender in a respectful manner (World Health Organization, 2014). Other resilience factors that are common in the youth considered to be white and are practiced by the African American youth include the aspect of being actively engaged especially the agentic behaviors in their schools, with peers as well as at home.

Implications for Counseling

In most cases, I enjoy learning about various characteristics of adolescence including cognition due to the fact that it tends to reaffirm certain behaviors that I have in teens particularly at my library. In essence, my physical development was not difficult for me. In this light, I went through the growth spurt at the time when I was only 10 to about 15 years of age. At that time, I did not think that it was going to be difficult for me due to my wide range of development spurts. Moreover, I was not belonging to the sports club and for that reason, I never felt uncomfortable especially when moving my body. Besides being with boys, I had my own interests. My physical developments have had some impact on my current character. This was mainly because I was considered to be taller than any other teen since I was very young and most of my friends kept on saying that I was like their elder sisters. At that moment, I had no idea that the changes that were happening to me were influenced by genetic or rather environmental factors. Some major theories that are related to my development stages include Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development which proposed that often proposes that children are meant to learn through play with four main stages involved. In this light, this theory did well in describing when I was advancing in cognitive or rather the motor ability. Another theory that had an impact on my life during the development stages in adolescent was the social learning theory which allowed me to fully interact with my peers and being able to understand various individuals that I got to interact

Conclusion

In essence, it is evident that there are various development stages that teenagers and in particular adolescent can undergo. Through the comedy-play Breakfast Club, the paper has successfully analyzed various development stages in the character or Bender. Additionally, the paper looked closely at the various factors that influenced the resilience of an individual as well as particularly that of the minority youth. Through the assignment, I have been in a position of learning arrays of elements regarding my development. For instance, I have learned that physical development played a role in shaping who I am today while my cognitive development required me to fully understand myself and those that were around me during my teenage.

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