Boyhood Case Study

Boyhood showcases physical, cognitive, social, and family development (both normative and non-normative) through the life span. Following a young boy, Mason, and his family through hardship and prosperity, Boyhood brings to life the challenges and opportunities of growing up. While in middle childhood, Mason and Samantha successfully rode bikes, showing a mastery of gross motor skills (Cratty 1986). Samantha, who is two years Mason’s senior, was able to ride a bike while Mason was left to run. A few years later, Mason was able to ride a bike as well. This advancement of gross motor skills follows an age pattern, and shows normative physical development. Once Mason was far into middle school/the start of high school, he began to go through puberty. He started to grow taller and lost his “baby fat”, gaining a slimmer more muscular appearance. He grew facial hair and his voice began to deepen because of the lengthening of his larynx (Buchanan, Eccles, & Becker, 1992). This is a normative physical change that all well-nourished adolescents experience. Mason began to experiment with drugs and alcohol in the beginning phase of adolescence. While he was pressured to drink by older adolescents, his underdeveloped prefrontal cortex made it more difficult for him to calculate the risks that came along with
The arrival of Samantha and Mason most likely put extra strain on the couple which lead to divorce, and this is common- they were most likely unsatisfied with their marriage beforehand. He showed personal growth, going from the carefree dad to providing the “sex talk” for Mason and Samantha (Lawrence et al., 2008). This personal growth was beneficial to the family as a whole, as Mason and Samantha seemed to embrace their father’s new family. The tension between Mason’s mother and father seemed to lessen as their lives progressed and there was harmony even though they were