Massive overreaction to a TV show

I don’t agree about the ‘any family’. This implies that it’s all inevitable and there’s nothing we, as parents, can do about it.

Don’t forget that this is a fictional tv show and the family it depicts isn’t real. A boy like Jamie isn’t created in a vacuum. In reality, there would have to be a back story - dysfunctional family life, poor male role models, neglect, mental health issues, peer group influence etc.

Sorry to hear about the awful schools you’ve had to work in and the experiences you have had. No teacher should be exposed to any of that. Makes me feel extra grateful for my own children’s school, and the school I attended myself for that matter!

@Kilroyonly of course private school has different issues from the state system and you cannot extrapolate it to not being relevant given your different experience

that said social media issues affect everyone

presumably they have heard of Andrew Tate (given the recent Elon Musk statements)

I agree that the first episode was the best. I actually thought it was better not seeing the court case or hearing about why Jamie stabbed a girl to death. It was made perfectly clear who he was in the scenes with the female psychologist, which highlighted perfectly his very low opinion of females.
I also thought the scene with the young man in the diy shop was very telling and also highlights just what ‘ordinary’ men really think of women.
This was not a bad family or a deprived family. It could be anybody’s family.
My ds is older and said the world was different when he was 13 and not as swamped with incels and the like. He also said that from what he hears other young men say, they dislike the fact that white men are blamed for everything. All that is wrong in society is blamed on white men. We had a conversation where he acknowledged that it is indeed men who cause the vast majority of problems, but a lot of teenage boys are struggling to connect with anyone and this has left the likes of AT able to seep into that gap.

Perfectly put

I definitely don’t have a skewed perspective.

My job relies heavily on STATISTICS.

Facts, based on science, not biased perspective.

I’d advise you look up the relevant statistics before you comment. You clearly don’t live exposed to much. My job doesn’t give me biased perspective. My job gives me access to an incredibly wide range of people; from cultures around the world, races, ethnicities, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds, education etc. you couldn’t have a better ‘sample’ of people in any other job trust me.

🤣🤣🤣

@Lalalallalalala you sum it up really well

For me, my take on it , I think this was to keep the focus on Jamie and to look at him deeply - as a little boy , one you can’t help but feel for . Which is a very unusual reaction as he’s the murderer.

It shows a little boy. A boy who is at first scared , who goes through the whole process at the police station that is scary. A little boy who doesn’t show much reaction to what he’s done… like he doesn’t comprehend it. I cried at it, imaging my own son going through that and not being able to comfort him ( but then I’m thinking .. he killed someone why am I feeling like this ) … you see that he is a little boy . Had they delved into the victim it would have became about her , and you would just think “ the kids a psycho” .

And that is the way to raise awareness. He isn’t a psycho - he’s a child who has been heavily influenced by attitudes towards women that he is far too young to understand . He’s been left to go deep into an online world that brainwashed him . He’s insecure , he was bullied himself and got drawn into this world that is perpetrated by adult men , that convinced him he’s a nice boy and it’s the girls that are the problem so when he was rejected that rage felt justified , and he killed a girl. The bullying he was subjected to led him to find comfort in this online world that gave him a sense of power . He was that brainwashed that he still felt he was a good boy because he didn’t “touch” her and others would have . He was that insecure that what bothered him most after confessing was that the therapist- a female more powerful - might not like him.

This brainwashing stole his childhood. Because we aren’t focused on the victim, we could see this rather than him just being a psycho.

We saw a normal little boy , that still slept with a Teddy in his bed and liked drawing , that had a ‘normal’ family and upbringing.

We watch these shows and see the victims and as parents we worry that our child could be that victim and we think of how to prevent that. We hear of knife crime - not related to incels etc , you know just what happens out on the streets with gangs and muggings - and we always think of how we can prevent our child being the victim.

But what is important too is realising that our children could also be the one that ends the life. In these cases with child on child crimes , the perpetrators are also children - we don’t think much about that because we never think it could be our child , they are just labelled as bad children/ bad parenting - we focus on not wanting our child to be the victim.

It changes the usual narrative . Dont just try to prevent your child being the victim . Also try to prevent your child being the murderer.

Haven't watched this yet, but lots of chat about it, obviously.

One thing though: does anyone else think that 13 is a bit young an age for the child involved in what he does?

I know it's based on a few RL events, but 13 is too young, surely?

The age of RL perpetrators is usually 15 upwards.

Seems like a timely and well-made series, but just seems odd to me that the age is so young...add a couple of years, maybe...

Any thoughts/explanations?

That's shocking, all teachers are supposed to have training in lots of other areas other than the subject they teach surely? What about spotting vulnerable children, safeguarding, those potentially getting drawn into dangerous situations to name a few. I work for corporate NHS and even we do these sorts of training sessions every year. It is your job to play a part in spotting these things in your classroom. It was actually one of the chemistry teachers at my DCs school who spotted a boy who was displaying minor changes in behaviour, turns out he had actually started being groomed by an extremist group. Surely ALL teachers are responsible for the safeguarding of the DC in their school, I am shocked!

I am glad my DCs are not in school any more if that is the sort of level of not giving a shit that is now occuring.

I totally related to the portrayal of the school but only because of one school I’ve worked in.

I’ve had quite broad teaching experience, with the extremes being a leafy, affluent area and inner London. I’ve seen misogyny and toxic masculinity in its different shades. In the latter, my colleague was threatened with rape, another had a chair thrown at him, I lost count of the times I was called a cunt. In the former, it was more insults like “dumb bitch”, which landed the same way as being called a cunt, believe it or not. Here, when I tried to communicate my concerns with seemingly more ‘involved’ and often professional parents, my interactions with them occasionally made me realise the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree sadly. Actually, I am sure some of the parents I recall would have agreed this drama wasn’t relevant to them, although I’d have begged to differ at the time. Most were very supportive, of course, though not necessarily effective. So I do agree that some of this starts at home. It’s an extremely complex perfect storm of influences usually, of course.

As a woman, you therefore don't relate to any tv/films/books/radio/podcasts about crimes against women?

It's more the worry that he would get bullied in a secondary school environment like that. But of course I think every parent of boys has a responsibility to make sure they respect women so I don't dismiss those messages, it's just the depiction of what the secondary school was like scared me the most out of everything else.

I’m not sure why you are saying I think it wouldn’t happen in my part of the country? Our nearest secondary school is rubbish and definitely has its issues with anti-social behaviour (although even so nothing as bad as the school in adolescence). Thankfully my children don’t go to that school though!

I have also spoken to many secondary teachers that I am acquainted with and they don’t relate to the school at all, seem to think it was very exaggerated for dramatic effect.

While I would love to live in that kind of utopia, I’m realistic enough to know that’s impossible. All we can do in this life is take responsibility for our own actions, we have no control other people.

Well, isn't it ironic? They claim that TV and films don't shape our behavior, yet every time someone scrolls through TikTok or binge-watches the latest viral trend on social media, they start acting like it's their new reality.

The real question is: Who controls the narrative?

Who decides what gets viewed, what gets liked, and ultimately, what gets followed? You see, power doesn't just lie in the hands of the creators it lies in the hands of those who shape perception. And whether it's a political speech, a viral meme, or a scripted drama, the effect on behavior is undeniable. So, they may call it entertainment, but it's more like a masterclass in influence.

Our eldest was in class when some horror male student told their chemistry teacher (who is a female phd Dr) that "she should be at home in the kitchen looking after her man".

@MarmaladeBagel and have these chats before he goes to Secondary. Some of the Andrew Tate behaviours/influences etc are being seen in primary schools

It is a dramatic portrayal of a very modern problem of the influence over young minds.

This is a common theme to all parents.
Yes it was extreme, yes it was filmed intimately.

If your teen is truly not affected by online/screen issues then that is more unusual right now than not.

Body image, bullying by shaming with photo/video messaging, feeling of being left out of an event when you are getting photos of everyone else at a sleepover but you, feeling less adequate because your parents didn't take you skiing or to Paris because you were studying the Impressionists. Social media for teens is a way to show off, exclude, influence. How many kids try to suck up to the popular teens to be in that inner circle?

The questioning of modern parenthood especially pertinent to fatherhood I thought was subtle but clever.

We, as parents, and our children, are guinea pigs in this teens and online world.
It's opened up many discussions that other culture tries have not. Which isn't a bad thing.

I thought it was good. Not happy tv but good.

Chatting to a friend with a 14yo boy, misogyny is absolutely rife in his school. It's very sad.

You are right to be worried. Stay vigilant and keep talking to him, even when he gets to the age where he may not be as forthcoming about what is going on in his world.
Keep an eye on who he’s spending time with too, irl and online.

It hasn't made me worried that my son (8) will be radicalised or anything, but it has made me worried to send him to secondary school in a few years time.

I’m also one who was underwhelmed by the series and thought it was wildly over-hyped.
The issues it explores are relevant and important but the show didn’t really go much into the whole incel thing, or what exactly Jamie was watching online, or the events leading up to the murder - why was he meeting Katie, was there an argument between them that evening etc. It was all just hinted at and quite vague. Big chunks of the show were just people walking up and down stairs, down corridors, opening and closing doors, making small talk and conversations not really relevant to the plot. At times I was bored and wondering when we’d get to the point.
Also don’t get why people are so shocked about the school and what’s meant to be so horrible about it - it was just kids acting up and teachers being a bit shouty, surely this has always happened everywhere, it didn’t seem that different to my school in the early-mid 00s. None of this is new, even back then there were badly behaved kids, girls being slut shamed (though no nudes as phones didn’t have cameras), we got up to all sorts on social media (though it was Bebo, MySpace, MSN messenger and chat rooms rather than Instagram), we had mobile phones, there was inappropriate and gross stuff shared online (anyone remember 2 girls 1 cup??), we had access to porn and all sorts.
Most of us are now normal 30 somethings with jobs and families. The incel stuff has been going on for ages, I remember first hearing about the blue pill/red pill stuff around 2008/9, though it was limited to certain online forums.
I thought the show could have delved more into how this stuff has gone from niche corners of the internet to mainstream and how the likes of Andrew Tate/pick up artists/incel ideology has gone more mainstream and is radicalising young people. But it all get very surface level, we didn’t get to see the journey of how Jamie went from normal sweet boy to being radicalised.