I decided to write my paper on Shawn Hunter (Rider Strong). For those of you who do not or have not seen the TV series Boy Meets World, let me tell you a little bit about its history. The show portrays coming of age events and every-day life lessons of Cory Matthews (Ben Savage) and Shawn Hunter. The show first began when these two best friends were in middle school, sixth grade to be exact. Shawn and Cory come from two different backgrounds. Shawn is more of the “bad guy” reputation, while Cory has more of the “good kid” reputation. Cory was brought up in a loving home, with an older brother and younger sister. His parents are still happily married throughout the show. On the other hand, Shawn lives in a trailer park, with his fighting parents at this time. Throughout the second season, the two boys enter high school. Cory and Shawn try a variety of ways to become popular with their classmates. In doing so, they nearly get into fights with school bullies and troubles with Mr. Fenny (one of his professors). Eventually, Shawn becomes cool and popular at school, but still keeps his friendship with less popular Cory. Shawn’s mother, Virna, deserts her son and husband, Chet which upsets Shawn greatly. Chet then decides to leave and find Vina. After this soon occurs, Shawn lives briefly with Cory and his family. However, he soon figures out that it’s just not right fit for him and he decides to move in with one of his cool professors, Mr. Turner. Throughout the next two seasons, Shawn makes several life-changing blunders while trying to figure out his life and where he fits in. Cory and Mr. Tuner help him to make the right choices.
Next year, Shawn’s mother returns and decides to stay for a while. Shawn warms up to this idea, and accepts her. A year goes by and Shawn’s father dies from a heart attack, and his mother then leaves for no reason. His mother soon sends him a letter stating she is not his birth mother, just the mother who raised him. Shawn does not know where to turn at first, but finds his placed with Cory, Mr. Fenny, Mr. Turner and his newly found brother and closest friends. The series goes on to tell the story of them through college, after college and onto their life with more serious life lessons. For the next few pages, I will continue to talk about the struggles that Shawn had to go through and how they relate to psychology and child development.
Shawn’s personality is more laid-back yet rebellious throughout the entire show. However, Shawn was in a clique because he was more popular than his best friend Corey. This was good for Shawn because he doesn’t have a lot of good things going for him at home. However, as Shawn becomes more popular, Cory finds a girl he wants to date. This puts strain on the two friends’ relationship. Like every obstacle these two face, Shawn and Cory are able to meet half way and communicate.
As mentioned above, Shawn lived in a trailer park, grew up with his father and mother, until his mother left. For the majority of his life, Shawn lived with a father as a sole caregiver. Once his mother left, his father left. As a result of being abandoned, and passed from home to home, Shawn is prone to severe depression. Regardless of the dynamics of how a divorce or separation unfolds, there will be issues to address and adjustment to be made. When his parents both left, there was no guidelines addressed and there were definite issues present for Shawn. Some children whose parents divorce experience considerate difficulty in adjustment (D’Onofrio, et al., 2006). For example, they may report high incidences of anxiety and depression, they may have a greater number of academic problems, and they may be more likely to engage in “problem” behaviors, such as dropping out of school or using drugs (Dunn and Craig, 2013). In fact, this is exactly what happened to Shawn. He began to engage with people who he thought he belonged with, the more “bad reputation” cliques. He also became less