Unpacking Adolescence (Netflix) for Parents Published by Nicole Dieckman April 8th 2025. This article may contain affiliate links, please see our disclosure policy.
Adolescence (Netflix)
Adolescence isn’t a documentary series, but it feels a bit like one while watching, and the creators drew inspiration from a string of knife crimes in the UK, including a 2021 murder in which a 14-year-old boy killed a 12-year-old girl. The creators said they wanted to look straight into the eye of male rage, toxic masculinity, and the growing radicalization of young men by the online incel culture.
The creators of Adolescence broke the series down into four episodes that are easy to binge watch. Each episode follows one day in this drama as it unfolds, but packs a hell of an emotional punch and will leave parents reeling on how to digest and unpack all the subtle narratives.
I’m going to break down some of the things parents can learn from this series.
Adolescence – Episode 1
Episode one of Adolescence is all about digesting the reality that an adolescent can be capable and responsible for a heinous crime.
As the police break down the door to a modern family home with two adolescent children and arrest a young man while he pleads to his dad that he didn’t do anything the viewers’ stomach sinks.
Nobody likes it, nobody wants to believe it or think about it, but a kid in the midst of adolescence is capable of violent crimes and many teens do commit them. This episode really faces head on how the adult world feels about that and how difficult it is to navigate.
It also implores us to feel in real time how when a young teen says he’s innocent how much we all want to believe that’s true and how utterly devastating it is when it’s not true.
We watch as the parents sit in the police station and discuss how police do make mistakes and they just have to be patient, because this is a mistake.
I think as parents raising our kids through adolescence, this episode insists that we recognize, as our babies grow into adults, they are capable of more and more, and physically capable of violence before we are ready to believe that they are.
It insists we think about it now, before it’s too late. Address the dangers and difficult conversations head on and realize that your kid is growing up, but also capable of grown up actions now. Open the dialog and have the conversations in the midst of adolescence, and don’t ignore or look past what teens are capable of.
Conversation Starter
The scene where the dad looks at his son, after seeing the CCTV footage, and just says, “What have you done?” Is so heartbreaking because we can see throughout the first episode the father doesn’t have any indication and doesn’t believe for a second that his son is capable of this kind of crime, so as a parent it’s easy for us to put ourselves in his shoes, because we would feel that way too.
It’s gut wrenching, but then as parents, because we feel so much empathy in that moment, the next step is thinking, what can I do so that this never happens to our family. What happened to this kid to make him do this? We want to know why and how. And that’s why this episode is so important, it’s a fundamentally effective way to start the conversation with parents.
Parents do need to wake up to this.
It’s easy to say, “it could never be my kid,” “my teenager is different,” or “boys are just being boys,” or when we see something that could be dangerous during their adolescence we say “this is important for them to grow into a man.” These are things we tell ourselves so we don’t have to try and navigate the situation responsibly as parents, we want to believe it’s not possible, and so we have to ask ourselves are we truly parenting them through growing from not very capable small children into teens very capable of true violence in society. Or are we just trying to skate through, hoping nothing bad happens.
Honestly, as a whole, I think if we really started to look at this big picture, we would see that society could use some growth in this area.
According the World Health Organization– Worldwide, about 193,000 homicides occur among youth aged 15-29 each year, which is 40% of the total number of homicides globally each year.
According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention – In 2020, males accounted for 80% of all youth arrests for violent crimes, and their share was even greater for specific crimes like murder (92%) and robbery (88%).
My Personal Experience During Adolescence
When I was in college, I came home one weekend to visit my mother. We went out to eat for dinner, and a group of teenage boys in ski masks held us at gunpoint while they robbed the establishment. I could tell these were teenagers, I was just out of high school myself, and the fact that they were adolescents was obvious. But armed with very real guns, they knew they could use those guns to get what they wanted, and they had clothing that they felt could conceal their identity, so they could get away with it.
In the area I grew up in, because I grew up in an area where robberies happened a lot, I heard teens laugh about it.
Children growing through adolescence have brains that are not fully functioning, and don’t think about things all the way through. Teens ignore the consequences, overlook long-term effects, lack a concept of emotional damage, and fail to consider how things might go wrong or play out differently than intended. Or worst case scenarios being the real scenario that plays out.
In Adolescence we see that happened with the friend who provided the knife. Ryan didn’t understand the full weight of his own actions. He gave his friend, Jamie, a knife because he thought he was just going to use it to scare the girl that was bullying him. Ryan didn’t imagine the full scenario playing out the way that it did, he didn’t weigh all the possible consequences. He didn’t realize he was providing a murder weapon.
So What Can Parents Learn?
Teenagers step into these roles very quickly with what seem like innocent enough stepping stones.
“I’m just being a good friend, helping my friend who is getting bullied, by giving him something to scare her with.”
Before they even know what they’ve done. Before they are even capable mentally of understanding long term consequences. They may put themselves in situations they can never come back from.
As parents, we must maintain constant open dialogue with our teenagers. We have fully developed frontal cortexes, so we can guide them through all the possible outcomes. We help them analyze their choices and encourage them to ask, ‘Is this a good stepping stone or a bad one? And hopefully remove the bad ones as actual actions, and have conversations about why they’re bad ones, long before they find themselves standing at that final step.
The goal is that you’re children trust you enough to come to you and discuss ideas that may be bad ideas, long before those bad ideas become reality.
It’s your job as their parent to think about all the possible outcomes and long term consequences. And then discuss them, because they may not be able to think of multiple outcomes and longterm consequences but they can hear you tell them. They’re not deaf.
Don’t wait until afterwards to be shocked by the possibility.
As a parent you need to understand and do your best to navigate that possibility now. Have open dialog and discuss day-to-day activities in their lives and how they may be thinking about solving their adolescent problems. And truly discuss why.
Adolescence – Episode 2
Episode two of Adolescence takes place at Jamie’s school, while DI Bascombe searches for a motive and a murder weapon we explore two themes with consequential depth. The different villages that are raising our children, and the generational gap that forms between parents and our teens.
This episode is incredibly powerful for parents. It shows that if you get distracted and step back, becoming less present in your kids’ lives. Another part of your community will take on the responsibility of influencing and raising your kids
And to some degree, they’re doing that whether you’re showing up or not. Which is why open dialogue is incredibly important.
Watching DI Bascombe at the end of the episode take a lunch break and take his kid out to get some food, just to make sure he was showing up for him, was so powerful. Seeing him realize through the episode how much of his son’s life existed that he just didn’t know about was a good reminder for all parents.
It Takes A Village
The phrase, “It takes a village,” is a well known phrase that can help parents understand that the responsibility for raising children is not solely on the shoulders of the parents, but instead the community as a whole raises children.
The truth is, this saying applies whether parents want it to or not.
Some parents go out of their way to isolate children from the community as much as possible to try and prevent this, by homeschooling and/or limiting access to any personally unsupervised interactions. Generally, however, both parents and their communities raise the average child, especially as they grow into adolescents.
Most teens have several communities- school, neighborhoods, parents’ friend groups, family, possibly a church, and in our present generations online communities. This is why we use the word village, your child’s village is their collective communities.
And no matter how much you have the desire to be present in all of them and maybe you’re a helicopter mom and a control freak and this is hard for you to hear, most likely, you will not be present in all the communities that are influencing your kid.
Episode two did a spectacular job at really diving into looking at these communities and showing and reminding us as parents, that your adolescents are living in some communities that we, as parents, are not.
Taking a Closer Look
When our kids are small and we have complete control, it’s easy to be a part of all of their communities, but as they grow into teens, even the most helicopter of parents, will have to allow their child to develop in communities outside of their influence or reach.
Traveling through the school on this particular day in episode two highlights how different this particular community is from a home life or even anything remotely similar to Bascombe’s environments. DI Bascombe comments on how he doesn’t like it, but as a parent, his teenager is there five days a week, and his kid is not treated particularly well either. His son also points out that not only are the environmental factors and the social interactions very different from what Bascombe experiences on a daily basis, there are subtle language differences and forms of communication that just go right over adults heads.
Many people who watched and commented on this show said things like, the point is you need to keep kids offline, but I think there is a bigger picture here, while I’m not commenting on whether letting your teens online is bad or good, I want to say that, in this environment of the school, the communication is happening and will be a different language than what adults understand either way. And if your kid is the only one not using technology or emojis or their particular brand of peer communication they will still be exposed to it, and will probably just be made fun of for being slow to pick it up.
Sheltering tweens and teens from things their entire peer group is actively doing doesn’t usually go great for those kids.
The Generational Gap
This is where we have to talk about the second point that Episode two of Adolescence drives home, the generational gap between teens and parents.
I remember very vividly being a teen and thinking my Mom just doesn’t get it. This was before teens were online. And now as a parent, I see why it’s so hard for parents to be able to get it. We really are living in different worlds and communities.
Even online where both kids and adults are communicating, we are really separated by our algorithms and choices of places that we visit. We are having different experiences within technology based communities as well. I think this episode shows that really well.
The only way to bridge that gap is to have constant open dialogue with your children and to take a vested interest in the things they’re learning and are interested in. To question with them what is happening in their lives. To ask the questions and seek out the information.
Trying to control it by blocking it rarely works, because when it comes to being on the same footing as their peers, teens are very good at figuring out how to bypass your systems. They don’t want to be the weird kid that never knows what anyone else is talking about and they will figure out how to figure that out.
What Parents Can Learn from Episode Two
Every moment in a kids life is a teaching moment. And I’ve talked about this in previous videos, whoever is present in a child’s life, in that particular moment, is raising them. The information they’re learning is raising them. It’s an entire community and village that is raising your child, unless you and your kids are extremely isolated. So be present, as much as you can, to make sure that you are a large part of that village. That you are the voice they listen to and respect honestly above all the other loud voices out there.
Some parents are barely there, and some parents are there all the time. Be honest with yourself and ask yourself which one are you, and do you need to make any changes? As a parent, being present is your strongest value.
Communication is Key
Episode two implores us to realize that if we do not communicate with our children often that generational gap will grow wider and we may not even be able to communicate with them on their level. We may miss important signs and not hear (or in the case of digital communication see) them when they tell us something.
Again, that final scene in the episode where the detective is walking back to his car, really pondering all that he saw and learned that day and realizing that he needed to be more present in his own son’s life was so real. Just telling him, hey lets be hungry, just so they could spend some quality time and talk, was so powerful. They weren’t even necessarily hungry, they made a point out of showing that wasn’t what mattered. Because at the end of the day, this is the biggest step we as parents can take to bridge our generational gaps and make sure we are an active part and a major role in the village raising our teens.
Adolescence – Episode 3
Episode three dives into who Jamie, the adolescent who murdered his classmate, really is. It takes place 7 months after the murder so that whatever we see isn’t shock or processing what he’s just done. It’s a deeper look at who the day-to-day Jamie is. What is really going on in his head. A psychologist is interviewing Jamie, and we see her looking at him over and over either in person or on a TV trying to dissect how and why this boy did what he did.
We see that he doesn’t have Mommy issues and he doesn’t have Daddy issues, he seems to have a good relationship with a normal family. Even joking about his granny and sticking up for his Dad when he thinks the psychologist might think his Dad had anything to do with his murder.
But the psychologist keeps bringing up the dad so that we as the viewer can see, this particular session is about his toxic masculinity. Understanding his understanding of masculinity.
Because at the end of the day, that was why Jamie murdered the girl, his masculinity felt threatened and she didn’t give him what he wanted.
Both Teens Were Bullied
As the story unfolds, we see that peers at school bullied both teens in very emotionally difficult ways. The school shamed Katie for a nude photo and attacked her femininity by calling her flat chested. Jamie was poked fun of in comments on his pictures and his masculinity was attacked when it was suggested he was an incel because he didn’t have a girlfriend. But Jamie was the only one who felt like murder was the appropriate response.
I really appreciated that they pointed out the way this kind of emasculating behavior happens to girls as well. Behaviors intended to make a girl feel less feminine such as calling her flat chested. I also find it interesting that the English language doesn’t even have a word for this behavior but we have “emasculating” for boys. It’s not an issue that only happens to boys however.
What he does have, that stands out, is confidence issues. He thinks he’s bad at sports, bad at being clever, specifically says he’s bad at everything and calls himself ugly.
The show, both in this episode and the next brings up that Jamie’s dad looked ashamed of him when he played sports and I think that this is brought up for parents to realize that they do have an effect on children’s confidence, whether they know it or not. Whether it’s intentional or not. Children’s confidence can be heavily influenced by parents.
He doesn’t know who he is, but he’s trying desperately to understand himself and if he’s likable. He thinks he’s probably not likable and so he has to manipulate society and girls to get what he wants.
Toxic Masculinity
This episode was designed to look at toxic masculinity head on and try to figure out where it develops from and why. How.
As parents we’re trying to understand the root cause of it, and this episode is asking those questions. It’s really disturbing to watch and try to break down what’s happening.
I personally watched this episode more than once, and it’s honestly a great character study.
Character Study of Jamie
We see that Jamie likes to label people and put them in a box, he decides right away that the psychologist is posh and slaps the label on her because of words that she does or doesn’t use.
He also doesn’t view girls as friends or mates. Women are for something different. His dad doesn’t have any friends that are women and neither does he. He says if he had a girlfriend he would take her out and make out with her. Try to do sexual stuff with her. That is what he views as the purpose of girls. Sexual things.
The psychologist was a woman so the way Jamie acted towards her was also a clue into how he felt about women.
He was constantly second guessing her motives, convinced she was trying to get him to say something he shouldn’t. But he also wanted to be superior to her, he wanted to be the boss and yell at her and tell her how to act, and he thought it was acceptable to throw a tantrum and yell at her, try to intimidate her with his words and body language, and then just apologize and continue as if it had never happened. He would also turn the blame of his outbursts onto her. But at the end what was really chilling, was that what he desperately wanted, despite all this, was to really know if she, if girls, found him likable. Despite all this completely toxic behavior.
Toxic Behavior
Toxic behavior that included murdering a girl, by the way, which he didn’t admit to in the course of the episode. But he did admit to having a knife and then tried to justify what he did as not as bad as what he could have done, which was sexually assault her as well. Because some other guys would have done that. Which is also a toxic masculine trait, to justify behavior by saying I could have done worse.
He also consistently held the view that he was being over punished. That it wasn’t right that he was being punished and that he hadn’t done anything wrong.
Adolescence – Episode 4
Episode four of Adolescence was a day in the life of Jamie’s immediate family 13 months after the murder on his father’s 50th birthday.
Jamie didn’t just ruin his life, he didn’t just take away the life of the girl who offended his masculinity, and ruin her families life, this episode is about how his premeditated yet impulsive heinous actions will forever effect his families lives. The butterfly effect of Jamie’s actions ruined his families lives.
And that is a bit what this episode is about I think, accountability. Who is and isn’t held accountable. It was an entire village who created the Jamie that believed he was right in murdering a girl, and yet the village turned on the family and only believed the family was responsible.
The neighbors ostracized the family. Claimed to not have seen anything when teens vandalized their van. It was also clear that it happened often. The main teen that vandalized the van was the same teen bullying DI Bascombe’s son, which I think speaks directly to the idea that the village that creates a villain is the same village that will blame only the parents.
This episode takes a long hard look at just how much responsibility and blame is on the family, and how much they have to live with for the rest of their lives.
Who Is To Blame?
They discuss how much they feel like it’s their fault because they were his parents but then they also point out that they raised a great daughter exactly the same way in the same house, that was an amazing girl, so there had to be other factors at play as well.
I think episode four was really driving home the points made in episode two about how a village raises a kid, but then episode four has the chilling conclusion that if something goes wrong, the village doesn’t take responsibility, the parents do.
So then they question, should they have done more. And the answer is yes, and they agree, yes. And the sad awful ending is the father laying on his sons bed, tucking in his bear because the son is no longer there, and apologizing while crying.
As parents, I think this is a good reminder to analyze our life and ask ourselves the question, are we doing enough now, for our teenagers. Because it’s easy to give the village the reins, but at the end of the day, we are the ones responsible.
In conclusion, this series is an incredibly deep look at violence perpetrated by young men, toxic masculinity, community, responsibility, and generational gaps that form in adolescence. It’s an amazing study of four specific days that create an entire story and force us as parents to ask hard questions and consider topics most of us aren’t interested in entertaining thoughts about, but it makes us realize, maybe we should.
So I suggest watching, maybe more than once. As hard as it is.
Communicate with your kids, and be present in their life.
Happy Nesting, NestKeeprs
-Nicole
