'It's the wake-up call we’ve been waiting for' - The lesson we can really learn from new Netflix drama Adolescence

There’s a scene towards the end of the new Netflix drama Adolescence that holds a mirror up to the state of modern parenting. And it’s a very painful reflection indeed.

In the final episode, dad Eddie Miller (Stephen Graham) and his wife Manda (Christine Tremarco) tearfully unravel how their sweet-faced 13-year-old son has ended up on trial for stabbing a girl after she rejected his suggestion of a date.

Hadn’t they always tried their best? Worked long hours to provide for him? Tried to find him hobbies? And when he asked for a computer, they proudly bought him ‘the whole set-up’, including the desk and the headset.

It’s then they realise that was when they started to lose their son.

‘He would come home, slam the door, and stay on the computer,’ Manda says, desperately trying to process what has happened.

‘It would be 1am in the morning, and I would knock and say, ‘Jamie, come on, son, you’ve got school tomorrow. The lights would turn off, but he never said nothing.’

Parents have flocked to say how frightening they find watching Adolescence. But as a parenting author of What's My Tween Thinking? a counsellor, and mother of two, I don’t believe it’s the fear that their children could ever turn into murderers that’s so overwhelming.

Even with knife crime soaring, the truth is it’s highly unlikely an apparently well-adjusted boy from a loving family, like this one, would ever commit such a violent crime. There would be lots of other red flags first, as in the case of Southport killer Axel Rudakuban, whose mother had been warned to secure all the knives in their home long before he attacked and killed three little girls last July.

I believe the real reason Adolescence makes for such uncomfortable viewing, is many parents are struggling with how to raise children in a world where they feel their kids ‘need’ phones and computers.

They don’t feel there’s any option but to give them the tech they ask for, but they are also terrified of what their children can see if they wander into a toxic world of porn and misogyny – one where they can’t follow.

In this pivotal scene, Eddie speaks for many parents when he sums up the powerlessness so many families feel.

‘You can’t know what they are watching in their room, love,’ he tells his wife.

'We couldn’t do nothing about it… all kids are like that these days, aren’t they?’

If there’s a message to take from Adolescence, it’s this reminder that it’s time to step back and question the assumption that this is the status quo. This drama is a long-overdue reminder that WE adults must remain the biggest influence on our children’s lives.

It must be our voices they hear, not those of toxic male influencers like Andrew Tate.

If we leave them to wander alone in these spaces, boys who are just forming their sense of identity begin to internalise unhealthy ideas of what it means to be a man.

Being able to view thousands of clips of men objectifying women’s bodies in pornography – and hearing women referred to as ‘sluts’ or ‘whores’ – hardwires a sense of entitlement over women’s bodies at a young age.

Without an adult perspective or context, boys at a critical stage of identity development assume this is how the world works – unless we tell them otherwise. We can’t undo the tech. But we can take more steps to stay connected to our kids – and never allow them to use phones and computers in their bedrooms.

Instead of staying stuck on the other side of the bedroom door, we can start the conversations first and talk to them about what they see online, rather than surrendering to it.

As part of ongoing chats, we can encourage them to question sexist language or assumptions they hear from their peers, online, and in current events.

As parents of sons, we can talk about how equality and loving relationships are just as important for boys as they are for girls.

The uncomfortable reality is we need to start these conversations earlier than we have been doing. Most studies agree one in three kids have seen hardcore violent porn by the age of 10 – well before we’ve even brought it up with them.

So yes, as a TV drama, Adolescence is a hard watch, but it’s also an essential one.

The fact that so many of us recognise how this couple describes losing their boy to the internet is the wake-up call we’ve been waiting for.

In the final moments of trying to understand how this happened to their son, Eddie tells his wife, ‘It’s not our fault. We can’t blame ourselves.’

But it’s Manda who reminds him: ‘But we made him, didn’t we?’

All episodes of Adolescence are available to watch on Netflix now.