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

Very few males are deviants - and this is a fictional programme.

People are talking as if this were a documentary! It is fiction.

13 year olds who kill are vanishingly rare. Thirteen year olds who are intelligent, literate and from (relatively) stable and loving families who kill are almost non existent (can anyone recall one?).

I watched this last week with my two teenage sons. We all thought it was unrealistic and over rated. I also thought it was turgid and trite.

Tbf I was surprised at a 13 year old out unsupervised at night. That's not something I would have allowed

Everybody misses the point that it was the mum who allowed him to go out late at night and didn't know where he was.

Don't let your kids hang out in town alone at night.

Simples.

Young man not 'youngest man'.

I watched this thinking the parents were 90% to blame, how can you not know what your little kid is up to, maybe a bit different if close to adulthood but even then i have a late teen DS, I absolutely know him and his he has arrived at being the youngest man he is - which is socially conscious, caring and intelligent. I would certainly have known what he was all about at the kids age in the programme!

I don't think that it is a majority of boys or even a large number though - I am worried that we are demonising boys here.

I'm only watching now. The message is am getting is to raise your children to encourage their self esteem. I have 3dc (dd1 21, dd2 19, ds 17) and I genuinely think that if their own self esteem is OK they won't be so vulnerable to peer pressure and they won't be so vulnerable to this hatred of people who would "put them down"
I don't believe in, and never gave, checked their phones. We have good relationships where they can talk to me. Checking their phones causes distrust and distance. My mum was always trying to tell me what to do, so I learnt to be sneaky (no mobile phones I those days, but the same old story!)
If he had a more open relationship with his parents, maybe ge could have discussed the bullying he was subjected to. Maybe they could have supported him and made him feel better about himself ( had this with dd2 and her toxic friendship group)
Look, I'm absolutely NOT blaming the parents, who did the best they could and didn't know half of what was going on, but all this "check their phones" hysteria is going to be just as damaging

@crumblingschools ,

It is about knowing individual pupils and dealing with the behaviour, and not the ideas (which should be dealt with, but calmly and patiently).

When I was teaching, we actually had a professional organisation come in to talk to the boys. They said that they never went in head-to-head and tried to rubbish Tate, as that was counterproductive, but to replace him with positive role models.

But my point is that for every 10 boys mouthing off in a Tate-like way, 8 will be decent boys trying to look cool and shock adults and 2 will be more hard core. The ways of dealing with the 8 vs the 2 should be different.

As for my own teaching, I focused on my subject in lessons and didn’t tolerate distractions of any kind and, in form times, I practised free speech.

It didn’t mean I didn’t strongly challenge misogyny of any kind; I very definitely did. But I didn’t rush to detentions, as that would just make them think I was a part of ‘the matrix’.

I think I did a good job but then it is hard to know as you don’t really see what kind of adults emerge at the end.

@Newbutoldfather a local school did staff survey, a number of female staff said they were scared of a number of students. This is a secondary school in some would call a naice neighbourhood. Is that fine? And they can see that this behaviour is being fuelled by the likes of Andrew Tate. Did you read the OFSTED review on child on child abuse? This behaviour should not be excused as adolescents like to shock

@crumblingschools ,

I used to teach.

Understanding Is not condoning. But an overreaction is just what they are looking for.

it’s just pointing out that wanting to shock is normal in adolescence.

@Newbutoldfather do you work in a school? Why should girls and female staff have to put up with some of the awful behaviour and attitudes shown by quite a large number of male students. Do you believe in ‘boys will be boys’, because that is one shit attitude

Also, while there are obviously some problem teen boys, a lot of people massively exaggerate the issue.

Teenagers always have and always will want to shock adults. When I was young it was a skin haircut, swearing, and listening to punk and pogoing.

These days the above would probably just be shrugged at. But, all the ‘isms’ scare adults, so teens act up to it. The majority don’t mean any of it and are nice boys who will stop posturing when it either stops being effective or they just grow out of it.

Deliberately haven’t watched Adolescence as I know that I would find it far too upsetting and have enough stress in my life as it is. I have two sons 22 and 25 and, although they have had their moments, they both have Uni degrees, good jobs and lovely girlfriends. Please don’t assume that all young men/boys are violent psychopaths.

Of course we aren’t talking about the boys that don’t kill others but end up killing themselves. 200 suicides a year in teenagers. Most are boys.

From Google so nobody nitpicks "The concept of cultural decay can be associated with a decline in cultural and intellectual pursuits, leading to a fragmented society with fewer universally shared cultural references. This can result from the rapid production of cultural content, making it difficult to maintain a common cultural canon.
Some argue that cultural decay can be characterized by economic stagnation, institutional decay, and cultural and intellectual exhaustion, even at a high level of material prosperity and technological development. This perspective suggests that cultural decay can be a precursor to societal collapse, where a civilization loses its cultural identity and social complexity."

Intelligence is important to understanding, if you have a limited education or don't have the ability to evaluate and filter that information then you are much more susceptible to being the victim of indoctrination as you literally lack the intellectual capacity to question things.

What you are arguing doesn't make any sense as the more educated the society, the better. My Mum's job was relevant to the subject of this discussion; this is not an dissertation and we are not in a court of law, it's Mumsnet, a chat forum, like many others on this thread I'm posting my opinion with anecdotal references which is perfectly acceptable to do on a chat forum- how long have you been on here that you don't know that?

Victims of domestic abuse are not indoctrinated they are victims of violence and are acting out of fear. What German party? Many people who can't deliberate or understand things at a deeper level are simplistic and are lacking the intellectual capacity to do so. With young teenagers it maybe simply because they literally do not have the intellectual capacity to do so as they are not fully formed.

What are the reasons that are so persuasive that you are referring to?

Oh well it you don't know anyone then it must never happen...

It's based on the multiple and repeated incidences of male on female violence. The week it came out there was that news piece about that man who had killed his ex and her mum and sister, basically because she had rejected him (sorry can't remember his name)

So please let's not pretend the entire scenario was made up from nothing.

17 children under 16 were killed in 2024, I don't know the breakdown further than that.

https://benkinsella.org.uk/knife-crime-statistics/

OP

The link above has training for parents around knife crime.

In this instance the writers were keen not to "blame the parents" which I think was the right move - but in reality most boys who commit these types of crime have a background of neglect, abuse or other significant trauma.

I do wonder what happened to those Cliffords. To have two children who committed heinous murders as adults, and neither found mentally ill.

Jeez that's depressing.

No TV? That's really interesting, do your kids not have any screens?

Parental controls are tight but I am aware they may see stuff from other kids phones.

The biggest eye opener for me has been that a parent's determination to control access is usually far surpassed by a teenager's determination (matched by their ability) to circumnavigate any controls put in place. Peer influence is incredibly strong, and they will always know someone who knows how to avoid detection, and they will always seek ways to obtain access to the communities their friends are part of. I remember fighting a losing battle with TikTok access. It's therefore highly unlikely they're only viewing stuff on friend's phones, unfortunately. Far better to focus on having the right conversations with them in the first place, so that they are better equipped to deal with modern day threats.

Example: 14yo ds gets sent semi nude photo of best friend's gf. Because we've spoken to ds early enough (i.e. as soon as he got his own phone) about this destroying lives and being illegal, ds immediately deletes photo, tells us, the school and the girl in question, thus preventing it from being shared more widely. The fact that he had the moral fiber to effectively cut his best friend off as a result is not because we control his phone, but because we had the right discussion with him at the right time, have actively encouraged respect for others, the importance of consent and have built a trusting relationship with him where he felt able to speak to us.

You refer to intelligence twice, but yes later on you refer once to intellectual capacity. I don't hold much weight with what you say because a) it's too simplistic b) you reference your mum as a source of knowledge
Please explain how perfectly intelligent or people with intellectual capacity put up with domestic abuse which is a form of indoctrination or those that form or follow ideologies that seem abhorrent to those observing...eg the party that took over Germany (and other countries) as you are effectively saying no-one in that party had intellectual capacity...I would totally beg to differ. There are other motivators for people becoming members of dodgy organisations or staying in relationships where outsiders can see it may not be the best environment for them, but you will only stand a small chance of having influence over that if you have a connection with that person, know what they are doing and can persuade them differently.

@WendyFromTransvisionWamp you sound a great parent and the important thing is there is an awareness of outside influences.

Parents who think that if they have parental controls on the phone, don’t let their DC roam at night and DC are involved with clubs, and all will be well are naive. The misogynistic behaviour etc that is seen in schools (including Primary) cannot just be from boys that come from poor parenting backgrounds, it is too widespread for that.