To feel scared about having kids, especially boys, after watching Adolescence on Netflix?

I have been concerned with Ed Tech and the push for It since DC started secondary school 5 years ago.

It's worrying how it's been pushed as a panacea, when there's evidence that it's actually detrimental to learning. Let alone the issues of privacy you mention.

If it were up to me, I'd go back to books, pen and paper in a flash.

This.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yr0zw65lro

Highlighting the issue of misogyny in schools

Many schools are fretting about social media on phones and are banning them or like my DD's school spending 1000s on pouches to lock the phones up in the day but they fundamentally don't have the knowledge or understanding of the bad influences of ed tech that they constantly endorse at school. Ed tech wants to make money just like big tech that the schools are fretting about. The design of ed tech, the use of ed tech, the fact that it is watching you even at home (the big brother effect) is something schools should be worried about but they aren't as they mostly are unaware of the culture that it is supporting in the home.

Yes, I agree that was partly the point of the programme but I am responding to the title of the thread and the OP, and I don't believe they need to be scared of having boys, they need to be worried about the wider context of society which the manosphere is thriving in. Equally, there is a lack of understanding in schools about over use of ed tech, the surveillance culture on our DC and the impact that is having on a generation. Having large swathes of your personal data shared and stored by software companies is not something my generation had to contend with. Privacy is a human right for a reason and the impact of constantly being watched and your performance being judged and recorded as data, in my mind is fundamentally detrimental to the psychological health of these children- i.e their actions and performance are being recorded as data and shared with software companies at school and they are bombarded with information based on profiling in their rooms. Basically, they are constantly being watched in a way that we (depending on your age) never had to worry about!

@Goldenbear that was partly the point of the programme, to highlight the issue that many parents don’t know what their children are watching. Doesn’t necessarily have to be about knife crime or incels, parents can’t be complacent

They didn't know because they neglected their duties as a parent. Honestly, if we are looking at that kid in Adolescence and saying how were the parents to know then that's were the problem lies! For such kids where parents don't talk to them, don't bring them up to be emotionally intelligent then we need to do something at a national level as by the time they are teenagers it is quite late in the day. As a parent why would you think it is acceptable for your child to be online for hours, that is a form of neglect surely? Having a good level of education is key to mitigating the risks of being brainwashed as it equips the teenagers with the ability to critically analyse the information and reject it. It is the same for extreme right wing, populist politics that the manosphere thrives in; context is everything, if adults are endorsing some of the political clowns that are hostile and intolerant then what hope is there for children to resist this. It isn't a coincidence that the manosphere has gained influence in a wider context of the adult world, where people are rejecting what they see as 'woke' and embracing populist politics. That's the issue that really has to be addressed and the government could start by looking at the big tech's influence in that area and the dangers of propaganda on politics.

@Goldenbear but you said how many parents don’t know what their children are up to. Many parents don’t. That was one of the things the programme was highlighting. Many teens spend hours in their room, many parents won’t know who they are chatting to or what they are looking at. They might think they do, but they don’t.

Toxic Masculinity was a once well-meaning concept that became far too internalised. As we’ve seen with Trump fandom, tell a cohort they’re deplorable and they’ll eventually live down to expectations because what difference does it make.

I think Adolescence showed up a whole range of issues, not just social media or the fact of being male.

If I had to say what the overarching issue is at a very general level, it’s a struggle in society for adults to be able to be authoritative, engaged, compassionate and yet firm and boundaried in relation to children.

I have been debating whether to watch it with my boy who is the same age as Jamie. I’ve decided not to. I think it’s for me to watch it as the adult and then decide if I need to make any changes in how I approach parenting my children. I don’t need to involve him in it.

Oh and as I work in info Security and data protection, I was on to who they shared their information with way before this even became a news article! I have challenged school on ed tech as they are completely clueless when it comes to the law!

@Goldenbear but what about the parents of the perpetrators, where are they? Why aren’t you asking that?

How patronising, no, I don't live in a bubble as I have lots of experience of troubled kids from my own youth which many on here seem to not know existed back in the day! Well it did for some of us, it was the same old story back then - emotionally neglected kids!

I don't even have technical controls and I work in info security so it isn't a question of not understanding this, I have something called a 'relationship' with my DC and open dialogue. Equally, I've bought them up with a moral code, something that seems sentimental these days or out of fashion!

Are they, a 'relationship' seriously or are they boyfriend and girlfriend. Referring to it as a relationship sounds precocious.

Well, because the girl is the victim in this scenario, where are the Dads in these situations, have they just abandoned their duties to their daughters!

@Goldenbear I think you live in a bubble. Many parents don’t know what their children are watching on the internet. Mid teens is when children start moving towards spending more time with their mates than their parents, which might mean being out or in their room chatting to them via Snapchat etc. Many of them will be looking at all sorts. You may have parental controls on tech but many teens can either look via their mates or are tech savvy to know how to get round the controls.

@Goldenbear many children are in a relationship at 13/14. Why didn’t you ask what the boy’s parents thought about it, why did you just mention the girl’s?

The boy in Adolescence was completely neglected to his own world, he is a little kid, what parent doesn't know what their little kids is doing. My DS is a late teen but I absolutely 100% know he is disgusted by the manosphere, he is a politics student discusses stuff with me all the time, I talk to my children, so would definitely notice if as a little kid like in Adolescence he was being brainwashed. We have had this very discussion as there is a sink school where nobody wants there kids to go to in the city where this is rife!

Our young man is a very decent, considerate person. HTH.

(Our young woman was an extremely difficult teenager.)

With the girl being coerced and controlled at aged what 13/14 which is very young to be in a 'relationship' anyway, where are the parents of the girl, doesn't the Father of the girl have anything to say about it? Who lets their daughter at that age enter a relationship full stop!

I have teens and as in my day, girls at their school have also bullied and are scary and intimidating - yesterday on the BBC news, one of the main articles was of the 80 year old man who was killed by two young people, the girl was 13 but committed the crime at 12! One of the most violent children in my DC's school was a girl, she was violent at primary school and has been expelled at secondary school. Tbf we live in a very bohemian area and the attitudes of the boys tend to reflect those of their parents so there hasn't been any Tate or manosphere talks at their comp. In fact the opposite, when the girls were being sanctioned for skirt length, parents complained about the sexism of this position. The boys would gather around girls in corridors and hide them from the teachers to prevent the girls being sanctioned by the school. In the end, the school got rid of measuring the school skirts. I think this is a bit of a bubble though and in the wider world it is a problem but I think increased violence overall is a problem. That said, I attended a very big and rough London comp in the 90s, loads of fights between boys and some boys definitely carried knives as incidents on some London buses, so I can't relate to it being better back in the day as my DC have a immeasurably better experience than me!

The problem with your example is that you are only considering it from the boys’ point of view. So 8 of the 10 don’t really mean it, but 2 do. Well, TWO DO! That’s 20%. Pretty scary.
And for the rest…

For the girls, all 10 of those boys’ comments LAND. Whether they were sincere or not, they have impacted the girls.

The boys will be boys crap needs to stop.

I genuinely believe you are being very naive.

In my daughter’s year at school (Y9), the boys have had to be pulled aside for ‘chats’ about Andrew Tate twice this school year.
One of the boy’s parents had to brought in due to their son exercising coercive control and manipulation over his girlfriend (a girl in my daughter’s class - they have now broken up, obviously, but she needed two weeks off school to recover sufficiently.)
In the last week of term, the school took out a whole morning for Years 9-13 for a workshop on masculinity.

The school isn’t doing this for fun. Parents aren’t happy that it was felt it was required. There is a REAL problem right now, and a clear and present danger to girls and women.
Writing it off as a teenage boys’ desire to shock or get attention does nobody any favours.

Im not being funny, but the family in Adolescence would probably have said the same about their son.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yr0zw65lro

Not all boys but too many : More than a third of secondary teachers have reported misogynistic behaviour from pupils at their school in the last week

There were two children involved. One ended up dead. She was also out at 10.30pm…
It’s boys and girls alike. Very scary.

Mates

I have a delightful 18 yo son.

He's adorable.