homework question : Solution Essays

 Nitin and Priya Pathak came to your office for counseling, along with their 16-year-old son Sujay. Nitin and Priya are first generation Indian-American immigrants, while their son was born and raised in the United States. They were reluctant to engage in counseling, but are doing so at the request of Sujay. In Sujay’s view, his parents are being overly controlling regarding his upcoming choice of college, which is causing increasingly frequent clashes between him and his parents. Sujay wants to attend art school, while his parents want him to attend engineering school. They state that a career in science, religion, law, or medicine is the appropriate path for a person of his caste. Sujay claims that while he wants to please his parents, he feels they are stifling his passion and imposing cultural norms that, to him, are a part of their “world” and not his. You have little knowledge of Indian culture or the caste system and are unsure whether the issue at hand is a matter of controlling parents dealing with a life transition issue or a serious conflict involving social and cultural influences.