Martin is ten years old and has been living with his mother for the past seven years. His father, Jacob, lost his job a year after he had born. He tried looking for new employment, but most of the positions required someone with both soft and technical skills. According to his wife, Mary, he always complained of being denied employment because he was black. He also lamented that black men needed more education than white to get jobs. The same views were echoed in the study by Pedulla and Pager (2019), who claimed that African Americans faced a systematic disadvantage in the job market. After realizing that he could not provide for his family, Jacob resorted to drinking and became increasingly abusive. When the situation worsened, the wife decided to go and live with her grandmother, who later passed on when Martin was six years.
Mary has been raising her child alone for the past four years, sometimes working three jobs a day. However, things worsened when she noticed her son had become more isolated. One week ago, she received a call from the school after Martin was involved in a fighting incident. According to the school principal, Martin had recently been quiet but violent when disturbed. His mother tried talking to him, but he became non-compliant. He has since refused to eat and spends much time locked up in his room. According to Lan (2021), children of single parenting suffer several effects, such as loneliness and emotional problems. This explains why Martin is hardly jovial; he rarely speaks.
Before visiting the agency, she tried reaching out to her husband, who refused to help. He even claimed that Martin was not his biological son and wanted nothing to do with him. Upon arrival at the facility, Mary was desperate and needed someone to talk to. Therefore, the nurse provider should view him as part of and inseparable from a family and social network (Broderick & Blewitt, 2020). Most importantly, the nurse should try to understand why Martin seemed unconcerned with everything that was happening around him.
References
Broderick, P. C., & Blewitt, P. (2020). The life span: Human development for helping professionals (5th Edition). Merrill/Prentice Hall.
Lan, X. (2021). Disengaged and highly harsh? Perceived parenting profiles, narcissism, and loneliness among adolescents from divorced families. Personality and Individual Differences, 171, 110466.
Pedulla, D. S., & Pager, D. (2019). Race and networks in the job search process. American Sociological Review, 84(6), 983-1012.