Little White Lie is a masterpiece story about family issues that depicts rising youth when an identity is significantly characterized by others. It describes the progress into adulthood as a moment when individuals can distinct their personalities. The difficulties of self-searching and development are amplified when one’s very own story incorporates different legacies. Lacey’s story is striking due to the fact that she, being a lady with slightly colored skin and curly hair with dull twists, grew thinking she was white. The film reveals many ethical concerns regarding parent honesty and the importance of understanding the heritage in identifying oneself.
As Little White Lie shows, dishonesty between a parent and a child can cause harm to the mental wellbeing of a growing youth. Lacey endeavors to accommodate her recently discovered African American legacy with her Jewish childhood and finds that she should initially explore her parents to make conscious decisions to characterize herself.
She processes how much of her past can influence her future. Lacey remarked that her family was white, and she defined herself as white (Schwartz & Mandefro, 2014). This portrays her feeling of being an outsider in her family and the white community. Family therapists intend to assist the parents who have problems with communication with adolescents by offering the most suitable approach.
It is critical to consider whether it is proper to “twist the reality” of the event to help clients settle their issues. Using this strategy implies telling lies frequently which might build distrust between the client and his relatives. Concealing the truth made Lacey live in a false reality where she believed what her parents told her.
The societal context is a setting or a surrounding where characters live. The discussion of power often accompanies the context as it affects everyone’s behavior. The societal context and the power in the film is the community of white people in Woodstock. Lacey is surrounded by her white peers and feels that she does not fit in the group. She starts to feel as a part of society when she becomes friends with students from the college’s black community.
Third-order thinking values societal influences and context since they help to understand and efficiently work with families. Today, it is common for therapists to work on connecting the dots between broad societal patterns and family systems. Third-order thinking recognizes how families are embedded in systems where social inequality and discrimination often develop. Power is based on the social processes that determine group and individual interests (McDowell et al., 2018).
Therapists accept that these cycles assume a vital function in deciding individual, social, and network prosperity and should be considered across family treatment models. The previous two order thinking approaches suggest family specialists to observe power dynamics to find the reason behind the unresolved issue.
This included couples’ classes as balanced or reciprocal, ideas of flat and vertical force elements in family association or pecking order, side effects raising the intensity of lopsided characteristics. These early conceptualizations of intensity would be outlined as existing inside families instead of being regularly perceived and tended to as arranged inside cultural settings.
Using third-order thinking implies viewing frameworks to plan connections between society, selves, and families. This expects people to adjust to sociocultural experience and receive points of view that incorporate structures for understanding cultural setting and force (McDowell et al., 2018).
Advisors, who target third-order thinking, make space to dismantle, assess, and upset what is frequently underestimated to assist families with thinking about various potential outcomes and points of view. They welcome families to review the effect of culture, cultural frameworks, and force on their connections and introducing issues. In Schwartz’s case, it would help accentuate the significance of someone’s origin in understanding a child’s soul and behavior.
The main character watched home recordings, chronicled film, meetings, and scenes from her own life, which revealed her family ancestry and the secret of her double personality. Lacey finds that addressing those inquiries implies understanding her folks’ accounts just as her own.
In families where race is not discussed, children learn that it is improper to communicate their sentiments and that the theme is untouchable and maybe even dishonorable or humiliating. One socioculturally attuned family therapy theory that might help Lacey’s family is the concept of valuing what is minimized. People forget the importance of minorities when they live in a world of dominant groups. This assumption recommends clients to initially name the characteristics and talk about their own and others’ sexes, social jobs, class, identity, and ethnicity to see how they influence patients’ lives.
In conclusion, family treatment proposes the perspective that outlines clinical issues and empowers practices that focus on fundamental change. The documentary depicts Schwartz’s story grasping reality regarding her genuine character and what it implies as a person who distinguished herself as white to learn she is actually black. It was immoral of her mother to hide the truth about Lacey’s biological father. Schwartz had many confusions and built distrust to her society as a result of the “white lie.”
References
Mcdowell, T., Knudson-Martin, C., & Bermudez, J. M. (2018). Third order thinking in family therapy: Addressing social justice across family therapy practice. Family Process, 58(1), 9–22. Web.
Schwartz, L., & Mandefro, M. (Director). (2014). Little white lie [Film]. Public Broadcasting Service.