Is it unreasonable to bribe my son to watch the show ' adolescence '

[atmywitsend1989]

Posted here recently but thought I would get input on a different issue.. My son is 16. He has made misogynistic comments before. I've given him tough love (yes.. I've also tried gentle parenting) and have consistently shut down his comments before. He has a teenaged sister and I really don't want her to feel disrespected.

He's been in therapy- the attitude hasn't changed. I binge-watched 'adolescence' yesterday and I'm hooked, it really opened my eyes. I want to rewatch it with him.. Tate and these influencers are ruining young men. They should show this to young boys in schools, but son hasn't been in education for a while.

Am I being unreasonable if I insist that he should watch it ? He doesn't live at home so I was thinking that I could offer him a day back if he watches this + speaks to his therapist again this week.

My only concern is that he's been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and claims to have obsessive thoughts. I don't want him to believe that he'll end up doing what the boy in the TV show has done but his comments and attitude really are unacceptable

Gee, a person harbors ill feelings towards a religion that tells him that he is an abomination? Hmm...it is so hard to think of why this might be. Really, almost impossible to understand.

Why do you think sending him to live with an abusive father who has a history of misogynistic violence would improve things?

This absolutely.
I think you, OP, need to do a lot of work on yourself if you have any hope of being able to help your child. Certainly watching a traumatic tv programme sounds like a really bad idea. You should be looking at sharing uplifting or at least positive experiences with your son. Show him you love him!

He came out to you, you used it as a stick to beat him with.

Then you apologised, and you're using the fact he won't accept the apology yet as a stick to beat him with.

You sent him off for conversion therapy and have kicked him out of his home.

You are trying to bribe him to do what you want with the promise of spending time with you, knowing that he's probably desperate for your love.

And you think watching a programme will fix this?

It really doesn’t matter if abuse of a child comes from religious or cultural reasons. Abuse is abuse.

OP asked a question about whether she could bribe her son to watch a tv show to fix his behaviour.

It is absolutely reasonable for posters to point out that this is a boy who has been abused by both his father and his mother, who grew up in a family and community that told him he was bad and an abomination, in a community who’s homophobia and biphobia is closely linked to concepts of what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in men that abhors femininity, and which in itself is likely to have deeply misogynistic beliefs alongside its biphobic ones.

OP may well prefer if all of this was left out and posters just replied with ‘yes, maybe bribe him with a pizza instead’ sort of ‘help’. But that’s not help.

Spelling out the likely roots of the problem and OPs own role in it is essential to any sort of help.

ASD and NPD and all these other diagnosis’s can resemble trauma. Am I right in saying he has experienced his Dad leaving, his Uncle being violent, his Mum rejecting him and acting badly to a very personal revealing of his bisexuality, his maternal family rejecting him due to his sexuality and then religious counselling? No excuse for violence but I’d be a bit wrecked in the head too after all that. Religion is no excuse, I’m a practising Catholic and would never be derogatory about anyone’s sexuality especially my child. I’d look at specific trauma therapy.

As far as I know they didn't have any identity issues, and are both hetero.

Your son is 16. That is a really difficult age child/teen for a parent to deal with. Mine were reeeeeallly hard work at that age! 😬 They are amazing and successful, young mid to late 20-somethings now though, with a great sense of humour, and a big heart.

You will all get through this. I hope everything works out for you all.

OP
As the mother of a gay son, who is my absolute pride and joy, i'm trying my best to remain polite here and not yell that it is you who needs fucking therapy.

This is your son you are talking about. Your flesh, your blood. Who do you love more, your own son, or the bigots in your community?

Find the courage to challenge them and stop the verbal abuse of your own child. You should be on your knees apologising to him.

Your poor boy.....😢

I think OP needs help as much as her son.

This thread is really upsetting, what 'faith' thinks it's ok to teach a young boy to hate and discard his identity.

No, don't make him watch Adolescence. Online influencers are not the issue here.

I hope you find the strength to salvage a relationship with your son.

Why would you tell him you don't approve of medication? Would you disapprove of insulin were he diabetic?

What was he referred to Prevent for?

Watching a Netflix series is not going to touch the sides here.

I am bi myself and am going to try hard to be polite. You need therapy and you need to take accountability and accept that most of this is your fault. You have been abusing your son and honestly, I hope he doesn't come home to you for you to damage him further. Saying sorry after means nothing and also doesn't mean you should be forgiven

So this kid (and at 16 he’s still a kid)

Had an abusive father who fucked off and has nothing to do with him.

Is struggling with mental health issues and possibly other things, but his mother insists there’s nothing wrong with him and he’s just an arsehole. Not just that but you prevented him from accessing medication , and now you’re telling him he’s old enough to take it but that you disapprove, putting it all on HIS shoulders. How is that taking responsibility?

He came out as bisexual and had his family yell at him, once again disapprove (to put it mildly), put into conversion therapy and thrown into his face during arguments. That’s ok though, because you apologise. That’s not taking responsibility, that’s being abusive and expecting him to get over it every single time because you said sorry. Taking responsibility would be not doing it again.

Then he had a section 136 and is now living in supported accommodation ,with carers , but again you believe he doesn’t need that, there’s nothing wrong with him, but you don’t want him home either. Despite these things not happening for no reason, and SS and councils using every loophole to avoid paying for anything . How is that taking responsibility?

You want to contractually exchange him spending time with you /at home(the thing he wants the most) to watch some crapy tv show in case what? It erases all his trauma?

Now you’re on here , all wide eyed innocence , wondering why he is like this, blaming Tate , blaming him, blaming his genetics and everything else you can think of instead of actually looking in the mirror.

I admit that I've brought up his sexuality a few times recently in heated moments but I take accountability while he doesn't).
Actually taking accountability means stopping the behaviour. Doing it then apologising then doing it again means your apologise are worthless and fake. Stop harming your child this way, you're the adult, you're the mum, start behaving like one. Take real accountability for your actions and stop making excuses for treating your child badly.

Yes, it is unreasonable to bribe DC over anything.

It sounds like your son has been a fairly typical adolescent and is struggling with his personal beliefs and identity. He’s lacking a father. He needs support and love from you. It appears the starting point to all this is him confiding how he feels about his sexuality to you and your reaction to that. He should be able to confide in you how he feels about his sexuality without having to have counselling.

As his mum, you should accept what he says about his sexuality and not make a big deal of it. And accept it may change. He’s trying to figure it out. Whatever his sexuality, he’s your son. You shouldn’t be mentioning it in arguments. That’s really unacceptable. In fact, you shouldn’t be arguing with him at all. You are the parent. You must model good behaviour. I suggest you seek therapy to help you be assertive and firm, but kind and supportive.

It sounds like you need to slowly rebuild your relationship with him, but with clear boundaries that you will challenge discriminatory comments and won’t tolerate any abusive behaviour. My DS’s have come out with all sorts of sexist nonsense and I’ve kindly challenged it. The time you spend together should be fun, respectful, kind and loving. You need to rebuild trust and your mother-son relationship. Don’t pressure him to do or watch anything. Don’t give him any advice unless asked for it. Just listen and be there for him. Set clear boundaries. And most of all try to keep things light and fun. Plan nice days out etc. There’s tons of healthy stuff 16 yo like, e.g. crazy or pitch and put golf (some places are indoors), cinema trips, watching sporting events etc. Try to focus on doing happy things together, rather than problems. Humour works a treat with teens. Heavy convos are awful for them.

Furthermore … if you bribe him to watch it … his carers will note this on their records for the social workers to review.

I doubt they would look favorably on a mother bribing a vulnerable child to watch a series with violence to teach them something.

You don’t like his misogyny but you yourself are homophobic? Can you see the parallels?

He doesn’t respect you, perhaps because he watched his father treat you with disrespect, maybe because of your culture. And therefore he doesn’t respect women in general.

I’m not sure how you are going to repair this. Perhaps family counselling before he’s allowed home? Please consider your dd in this. And your homophobic views. He knows how you really feel, even if you’ve said the right thing now.

In all honesty, it sounds like you've got more problems than getting your son to watch a TV show.
He's 16, not in education, and doesn't live with you. There's clearly massive amounts of backstory. It sounds like he's too far gone to apply the fictional story of a younger boy behaving badly to his own behaviour and THEN make a positive change.
Like another poster said, it sounds more like it would just put ideas in his head than be a good influence.

I'm sorry you're obviously having a very hard time OP, but a TV show is't going to "fix" him. Continue with the scientifically-backed therapies he's already having.

I've just seen that the therapy is faith-based. Yuck.

I agree with the posters above who say the message of Adolescence is much more nuanced than the incels = bad and exploitative, boys need to change their behaviour.

It seemed to me that the root of the problem was a love and approval deficit. The young boy desperately looking for love and approval from his peers, the victim, his Dad, the psychologist. But he can’t get it because everyone is judgemental and he is tortured by the fact he comes up short. (Yet of course, he too is equally judgemental of everyone else.)

The adults are all well meaning but making up as they go along and dealing with their own issues . They don’t have the answers the children need. They don’t completely understand their children’s world. They don’t have the time to give the children what they need as they are too busy earning a living.

To me the “lesson” (if there was one) was that parents need to work really hard to ensure their children are secure and emotionally resilient in the a hostile world. That parents need to give their children the message.we all fall short, None of us are perfect but that’s ok and if we are kind to each other , we can all still live happy and fulfilling lives.

I saw all the children as victims. (Disclaimer - I have only seen 4 episodes so I may revise this )

You could ask him to watch it because you wanted to know his perspective on it. Your reconciliation is only going to come about from a place of curiosity about him as an adult person.

I get why you're not engaging with the many posters saying you are being unreasonable. You don't want to hear it. But you're not the best person for him to live with, unless you really change your behaviour and your views. If you believe that god is love, why don't you show it to your son?

Perhaps you can take accountability by telling him about Hidayah, who support LGBTQ Muslims:
https://hidayahlgbt.com/al-naasih/

If you live in a city there will be support groups for young LGBTQ people.

Everything he says and does is explained by how people from his religion and you have treated him.

I would think your son is likely gay, but describes it as bisexual, as a way of softening the ’blow’ he suspected (rightly) it would be to you and the wider family/community. There are support groups for LGBT muslims. I don’t know if they work with teenagers, but maybe you could find out and see if he is interested in accessing help there.

Adding yet another charity for support, but this one works with parents as well as their children, so they could help you as well as him:
https://www.nazandmattfoundation.org/

Also if the "misogyny" is "Women in this religion are downtrodden, what idiots they are to put up with it" that's a different flavour than the Andrew Tate "It's my right to own and abuse any woman I want".

It is ironic trying to prevent misogyny expressed as a madonna-whore complex if your religion is pretty much saying that already.

Dear OP glad I was able to help articulate the background and that other posters are actually offering help and resources rather than beating you up. Honestly we live in a multicultural society and some people from certain cultures need more support than others to raise an LGBTQI child especially with other issues such as extremist thoughts and especially as a single mum with possibly little family and community support!

It’s awful to see such little compassion and understanding for such a horrible situation as OP describes here. What’s done is done. Change and probably a big dose of courage is what’s needed now, along with practical and moral support - being yelled at and called abusive on a parenting forum only pushes people who need help further away. 😞