Why parents, not teenagers, are the ones who really need to watch Adolescence

Like, apparently, most of the UK, I found Netflix drama Adolescence compulsive viewing. I’m a huge fan of actor and co-writer Stephen Graham whose performance was, as ever, both tender and tough; the young actor Adam Cooper was tremendous; and the two actors playing his mum and sister, Christine Tremarco and Amelie Pease, were just as good.

The sight of the family coming to terms with the fact that their son and wee brother had done something terrible was genuinely upsetting. The camera work, with hour-long, single tracking shots, was impressive and often unsettling. The writing was intelligent and unpretentious.

Of course, as a former teacher – one who spent decades in pastoral care – it all had a particular horror. I visited a former pupil in prison who had murdered someone; another committed a particularly violent homicide on a total stranger. But they weren’t 13, and their victim wasn’t a defenceless girl.

Actor Stephen Graham, who co-wrote Netflix drama Adolescence, stars as Eddie | Netflix

Nerve-shredding drama

Still, in a rather needy way, I wanted to be involved in the drama and not just watching it. The old feeling that you can make things better never quite goes away, even when, in this instance, it was clear that so much damage had been done, nothing that silly old me could have done would have made an iota of difference.

As an aside, the episode in the school, described by some teachers as unrealistic, was fine for me – the bullying PE teacher, the lazy, incapable young teacher and the well-meaning but ineffectual lower school head were there, but there were fine, strong staff represented too.

So it was a fabulous piece of nerve-shredding drama, which had plenty to say about schools, teachers, parenting, sex and, yes, adolescence. I cannot imagine seeing anything this year which will be more challenging.

And yet. Its central triumph (and, I suppose, purpose) was in presenting the yawning gap in awareness that lies between some adolescents and their parents, in particular to do with the horrors of social media and the propagation of ‘incel culture’, the sad grouping together of men and boys who believe themselves to be ‘involuntarily celibate’.

Andrew Tate and the like

Not to be flippant, but aren’t most 13, 14 and 15-year-old boys ‘involuntarily celibate’ – actually, I would think that even in these toxic times, plenty of 13-year-olds are perfectly glad to be celibate, and may be more resistant to this poisonous, well, s**t, being inculcated by online influencer Andrew Tate and the like.

The claim, for instance, that 80 per cent of women find 20 per cent of men attractive. Ha! How many times did I find myself saying to forlorn boys (and girls) that there would be someone for them. And, dear reader, I was so often right. Some great women have married some hideous men ( I can provide examples).

But my problem with Adolescence is that I don’t think this issue was explained or explored enough. The most crucial scene in the whole thing oddly did not involve any members of the family, but was a police officer talking to his estranged son – it was here that the complications of emoji communications were explained while the bullied boy told his butch dad about what the real life of some adolescents was like. Somehow or other we needed to have more of this.

Crucial role of pornography

And there were two other things. Firstly, clearly a dramatic decision was made, possibly quite early on, not to say much about the victim. We did not, for example, really see her family. We saw one friend (a great performance) getting very angry; but I felt we didn’t really know this dead girl, whose – I think pretty standard – cruelties had twisted the boy’s mind so much. I wanted to know more about the process of the acquisition of the murder weapon as well.

But secondly, and very oddly, there was plenty of evidence of the crucial role of pornography in the drama, and yet not much was said about this. I’m not convinced – as I have said – that boys of Jamie’s age are committed ‘incels’ in large numbers. But they certainly are, in some instances, very committed users of hardcore pornography, which has been proven, beyond doubt, to have terrible effects on their brains and developing sexuality.

In short, I think it might have been yet more useful as a tool in the fight against some of the horrors of modern teenage life, if it had paused a bit more on what caused Jamie to commit the crime, and maybe a bit less on the family side.

It was, of course, very very good. It will win every single award next year, and it’s only April! Which brings us to the Prime Minister, who was so affected by the programme that he said he was pleased it was being shown in schools for free and that young people should watch it.

Starmer not down with the kids

Sigh. I like Sir Keir. He is a decent, clever man, with an actual professional career behind him of great merit. He’s just a bit… I don’t know… out of touch. Not down with the kids, but very, very far away from them, say on Neptune.

The whole point is that the people who need to see Adolescence are not adolescents – they broadly know all this horror, even if they are miles away, like most, from experiencing anything so degrading and dangerous.

No, the people who need to be using Adolescence as an educational tool are their parents. And they must start talking to their kids about issues like porn, ‘incels’ and sexuality, and not leaving it to stressed-out personal, social, health and economic teachers.

Parenting is hard – I’ve never done it – but it’s changed and is changing more and more. Parents need educating about the dangers of adolescent life in 2025; adolescents are living them.

Cameron Wyllie, a former head teacher, writes a blog called A House in Joppa and is the author of Is There A Pigeon in the Room? My Life in Schools