Today, the roles and shapes of family is diversity. One of the serious family

issue is dysfunctional family. The term “Dysfunctional Familes“ are universal. In my

Human Development Psychology class, i have learned a lot of dysfunctional families face

chaos in a home child abuse or neglect, overrun by alcohole and drugs. Two short stories,

“Chapter two” by Antonya Nelson and “Magic Man” by Shelia Kohler are both about focus

on family issues by selfishness and low self-worth parents and how the style of parenting

affect their children.

First of all, these two short stories are similar because one of the main theme in

both stories is about dysfunctional families. Sandra in “Magic Man” is a young selfish

mother. The relationships …show more content…
Vanecek, “Parental alcoholism cause

a lot of negative impacts to the children, some investigators suggest that these survivors

may aso be prone to low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, somatization, relationship

problem, behavioral problem, dissociation, and suicidai ideation (446)”. Nelson espetially

mentions how badly affect the alcoholic mother impact on thier child, but for example,

Jeremy, he likes to play video gameswith his fat roommate Janine whose “ social life nearly

nonexistent “(176) more that going out or socialize with other people. I think this is one of

Hil’s negative effect to Jeremy to become dissociation or have a relationship problem.

Image how frustrated when he gets romm with all drunken people in his house almost

everyday. What we can learn from both stories is parents have to reach the point where

they can stop being selfish and put needs of their children first no matter what happens.

Her drinking is not getting better at all, because out side of the A.A. meeting, she is still an

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alcoholic. She lied about a year in the meeting. When Hil says, “It’s good to have

somebody else’s bad habits around to put your own in perspective ” (182). This is why