Foster Family Changed the Life of a Young, Shy Boy

For the family in advertisement assignment, I chose a video that captures a child who grows up with a foster family. This video is called “Families,” and it is used to celebrate 50 years of KFC in the United Kingdom. This video follows a young boy named Andy and his journey in life from when he first starts off with the family and ends up fostering a child later. At the beginning of the video, the boy is being dropped off and introduced to his new father and mother.

After he sets up his room, he goes out to the kitchen and finds that the parents have KFC on the table. He goes over and eats and smiles with them. After that, it shows them at the beach laughing and smiling, a car ride, his birthday, him getting in trouble at school, playing soccer, being annoyed with his sister, in a relationship, graduating, coming home to his parent’s house with his own family, and ends with Andy helping his father setting up the table for dinner and a little boy that he is fostering, and they all have dinner and smile and laugh together (KFC UK & Ireland, 2015). (there is a working video link on the reference page)

While watching this video, I noticed that even though the child is not the parent’s biological son, they treated him like he was. They did not treat him any more differently than a family with only biological children would. When he got in trouble, his mother was mad, and when he fostered a child, his father smiled and was proud of him. A second thing that I noticed is that according to Erikson’s lifespan theory of development, one develops trust and mistrust from the ages of zero to one year old (Brooks, 2013). Even though the boy was older and shy when they started fostering him, he developed trust with his parents. The third thing that I noticed while watching this video is that the boy had a relationship with his sister, and even though it does not say whether she is a foster child as well, they acted like they grew up together.

The fourth thing that I noticed is that blood does not just relate to a family, and this video breaks that stereotype and has a family with children who are not related by blood. The fifth thing that I noticed is that the mother and father are both authoritative styles of parenting. The authoritative style or democratic style is when the children’s behavior is self-reliant, cheerful, and achievement-orientated (Olson, DeFrain & Skogrand, 2014). They both show compassion and care towards their children, and their children show compassion and are cheerful towards their parents. The last thing that I noticed as I was watching this video, there are stereotypes that have to do with being adopted and not being adopted. According to the book, a study was done comparing adopted adolescents and not adopted adolescents, and they found that adopted adolescents are at a higher risk of having problems with drugs, school, behavior toward their parents, and physical health (Olson, DeFrain & Skogrand, 2014). That stereotype did not exist in this video because he graduated from school and loved his family. I think that this video showed that stereotypes about families and adopted children do not exist. His parents were loving, caring, and compassionate toward him.

After watching the video, I thought it portrayed fostering families very well. It showed that even if the child is not yours biologically, you should still treat them as if they were. This video not only showed that the mother and father fostered a child, but that child decided to foster a child as well. This video showed that fostering or adopting not only helps the children but the whole family as well. The message of this specific video was to get across that deciding to adopt or foster a child should not be shameful and that sharing a bucket of chickens breaks down barriers (KFC UK & Ireland, 2015). I think that the company got its message across that fostering a child or adopting a child is nothing to be ashamed of. This family changed the life of a young, shy boy and made him feel welcomed and loved.

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