ATLA: Toph Beifong’s Family N480: Christine Constantino
Introduction: Meet the Beifong Family
Lao Beifong
Toph Beifong
Poppy Beifong
Beifong, and a wealthy, intelligent,
Toph is a 12-year old talented
Poppy is Toph’s mother, wife of Lao
determined, well-known, and respected
teenage girl with top-notch
Beifong, and is also a wealthy,
businessman within the Earth kingdom. While
earthbending and fighting skills.
Lao does not hold any significant political
She is the only child of the
Lao is Toph’s father, husband of Poppy
position in this world, he did create the first joint nation refinery company with the Fire
Beifong family. Being born
high-status figure in the Earth kingdom. She is in her late 40’s (also within the Generativity vs. Stagnation stage of development) and oftentimes supports
blind, Toph’s abilities to be
her husband’s decisions. She is polite,
Generativity vs. Stagnation life stage of
independent was often
kind, and also overly protective of Toph
development (meaning, he is able to contribute
overshadowed by her parents’
and her safety. She is submissive to Lao,
to society through his refinery business instead
wishes to keep her safe and
who is the decision maker in the Beifong
of staying stagnant), and he is the head figure
protected. She was oftentimes
household; because of the sexual
misunderstood and treated as
inequality within the household, Poppy
“weak and fragile” due to her
rarely makes decisions for herself
Nation. Lao is about 50 years old, in his
of the Beifong household. Lao is generally a caring and kind man who always puts his family first and employees second. Despite that being said, he is also stubborn and unwilling to
visual impairment.
change his views and values.
Note: There are four nations within this world: Earth, Fire, Water, and Air. In this world, different nations coming together peacefully to establish something was a new and unusual thing to do because of the war between nations.
despite also being a noble-ranking figure.
Toph Beifong
Toph is a blind, 12-year old girl who had learned how to truly self-earthbend at a young age. She was taught by two badgermoles who were also blind animals themselves. These animals learned how to “see” by feeling for vibrations that would pass through the earth’s floor that people or objects made as they touched the ground. In learning so, Toph was able to use earthbending as an extension of her senses - she was able to “see” with her bare feet where objects were based on the vibrations she felt. By developing her own unique earthbending style, Toph learned how to fight and defend for herself in situations where she was alone. Despite her wealthy and elegant appearance when at home, Toph is more of a tough character and likes to talk informally and dress comfortably (she is unable to portray herself like this at home due to her family’s high-ranking status). She ultimately would escape from her home using an underground tunnel she created with her earthbending skills and leave to join underground earthbending arena fights. There, she had made a name for herself in the earthbending fighting community known as “The Blind Bandit.” She also learned how to metal-bend, a skill no earthbender has ever done before, when she was captured by thieves to be sold off.
Toph’s parents did not know Toph had been past the outside walls of their home to go and fight in earthbending fighting communities. They had not realized that their daughter was a headstrong and willful girl, unafraid to meet strangers who would challenge her. Even when Toph had tried to advocate for herself to leave her household, her parents would decline her wishes, thinking it was best not for her to go travel the world with her friends. Regardless, Toph would rebel against their wishes and still leave with the Avatar and newly made friends to help change the world. Despite being blind, Toph did not make her illness disability become the center focus of her character. She had utilized her blindness to make herself stronger as a fighter and as an individual person.
Toph’s Parents and their Points of View:
How Illness Affects Family Members: PROS: For Lao, he cares a lot for his only daughter and always wishes the best for her safety. For example, Lao and Poppy never really allowed Toph to go outside the Beifong estate walls because they wanted to protect her from being kidnapped, taken advantage of, manipulated, etc. He is goal-driven and once had enrolled Toph into an earthbending class when she was younger to learn the basic forms of Earthbending and breathing techniques. These efforts were made to have Toph attempt to learn earthbending despite being blind. Unknownst to his knowledge, Toph was already teaching herself earthbending skills from badgermoles. CONS: Because Lao was basing Toph’s identity from her disability, he fails to recognize his daughter’s true potential, worth, and character as a person. Because of this, Lao had always kept Toph guarded and shielded away from the outside world. He had neglected to realize Toph’s true potential as an excellent earthbender. PROS: For Poppy, she also cares deeply about Toph and always worries about her and her safety. She is overly protective of Toph and only wants what is best for her (i.e. staying home and sheltered away from adventures of everyday life). CONS: Because of this, Poppy also failed to recognize what was truly best for Toph and believed that Toph’s disability was a handicap to portraying Toph as “weak.” Poppy was also unaware of her excellent earthbending skills and always wanted to keep her protected.
Factors to Consider (Family Systems Theory): Cultural/Religious Traditions: As a family, the Beifong family did not have any religious practices they solely followed. However, being part of an Asian culture led their family to think that men were always superior as the main household figure of the family, with women being second in command and less of a higher figure.
Strengths and Challenges: Strengths: The Beifong family was relatively small. As a family of 3, it was relatively easy to provide for everyone in the family in terms of food, shelter, water, clothing, and necessities. Challenges: Toph’s parents would not always agree on what Toph wanted because 1) she was a young child, 2) she was a girl, and 3) she had a visual impairment and disability.
Communication Process: In terms of communicating to one another, Toph’s father, Lao, was often busy and gone from home due to work and business at the refinery, only to come home most often in the evenings to make it in time for dinner. Toph’s mother, Poppy, was home most of the time, but was also busy doing errands with her assistants helping her at her side. Toph was often isolated and lonely, having no real friends to talk to except the animals that surrounded her in her backyard. When it came time for dinner, communication amongst family members were often short and brief. For example, whenever Toph wanted to voice out her opinions for wanting to go out and explore the city versus staying home alone all the time, her parents would be quick to disagree with her and shoot her requests down immediately.
Toph and her family would communicate verbally by talking to one another when the time was appropriate to speak. Nonverbal communication was done often by Toph, who would express her anger and frustrations out loud by sighing at the dinner table or making upset faces whenever her parents would argue with her that it was unsafe for her to be outside. Her parents would have a look of concern whenever Toph would excuse herself from the dinner table, often times not realizing that what they thought was best for their daughter was actually not the case because they failed to listen to her needs.
Family Systems Theory: Assessment of Problem: Toph’s blindness enables the rest of the family to portray Toph as weak, fragile, and helpless. Both parents are overprotective of Toph and restrict her from going outside the house. Toph fails to form any friendships (except animals) until the age of 12, where she meets Aang, Katara, and Sokka. Toph’s parents failing to truly understand Toph’s needs enables Toph to feel some sort of resentment towards her parents because of the misunderstandings and their overly protective nature. Intervention #3 with Intervention #1 with Intervention #2 with Rationale: Rationale: Conduct Rationale: Assess each family Assess the perspectives of each care-planning sessions with member’s needs to collect family individual to see how members together. By data about the family as a chronic illness affects each performing this, each whole and how they function. member. In doing so, it will individual member will be In doing so, the focus is on give insight to how each member heard and listened to in family as a whole and its views the main individual’s regards to the chronic subsystems (Kaakinen et al., chronic health condition and health condition (Kaakinen 2015). changes (Kaakinen et al., 2015). et al., 2015). Outcome #1: By understanding the Outcome #3: Once family multi-level thinking members’ ideas and Outcome #2: Active perspective of family experiences have been listening and offering health, family structure, legitimized by the nurse and validation to comfort functions, and processes of other family members, the family individuals will the family can be greater the chances are of help acknowledge their understood despite the working together to find ideas and experiences influence of family solutions to their problems to make more sense dynamics. Everyone in the (Duhamel, 2021). To given their context or Beifong family has his/her intervene as a whole family circumstances own concerns and needs enables members to approach (Duhamel, 2021). attention to assess the main one another more thoughtfully problem (Eustace, 2022). and caringly (Looman, 2020). Evaluation: By active listening to each individual in the family, each family member can hear and understand the feelings of one another in a safe place to express opinions, ideas, and feelings. Toph can express what her needs and best interests are for herself, while both parents can understand where their thoughts are and act accordingly to reach an appropriate and mutual family understanding.
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