Massive overreaction to a TV show

[Kilroyonly]

I have watched Adolescence but don’t feel it was in any way relevant to my life nor my children It’s a very good show but it doesn’t resonate & I don’t understand the hype

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

@Lalalallalalala you sum it up really well

🤣🤣🤣

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.

Perfectly put

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.

Thanks for all your opinions, I haven’t read them all but I would like to say that Yes I have spoken to my children about the themes, they both go to private school so maybe it’s not the same experiences however they do come with their own set of problems

@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)

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!

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.

But I think that was the point @ProfessionalPirate that actually the family doesn’t have to be what we expect poor male role models can be a father you weren’t thinking off and actually it can happen in a posh private schook

in fact many of the variables can exist there

I disagree that only deprived downtrodden families produce misogynistic men. Off the top of my head are 3 clear examples: Trump, Musk, Johnson. All sexist with misogynistic traits.

The majority of men believe they are better than women.
Ask your male relatives to name a sports person, or an author, actor, poet, mp, scientist, human rights activist, anyone they admire. Then come back when the vast majority of them have named females in all categories.

I agree that was the point the program was making, but I disagree with the posters saying ‘could be any family’. The family in the show is of course fictional anyway, but actually also far from optimal. The father is not a good role model and the mother appears inept. They show little interest in their son and fail to set any boundaries.

I think the program raises some very important issues but I don’t think it’s worth scrutinising the family too closely.

Also agree that ‘posh private’ doesn’t necessarily = good (and private doesn’t necessarily = remotely posh either!) but that doesn’t mean there aren’t good ones out there if you look hard enough.

It's not relevant to you. Great.

It's relevant to many people.

Do we only make shows and talk another shows that are reverent to YOUR life?

That's the whole point though. It wasn't about her. It was about him and his attitude towards her - that she was inconsequential, not a person and didn't matter

Which makes it like every other drama where women are disembodied victims. It unwittingly feeds into a misogynist narrative - also the way the father treats his wife and daughter who seem to walk on eggshells around him. It may be realistic but some of us are as sick of witnessing it on TV as we are of seeing/dealing with it in real life.

Jamie isn't a normal child, though. He's a child with a violent predisposition growing up in a culture that, at the moment, is grooming those boys into committing heinous acts via their smartphones. Boys like Jamie have always existed. It's not new.

He's not a nice boy who spent too much time online, he's a horrible boy growing up in an increasingly misogynistic time. Horrible boys get upset when they're caught and have teddy bears too.