Teenagence: Parents Guide so as not to feel overwhelmed

An old African proverb recites: to make a child it takes a village. But if the village is rotten? That’s what I thought after seeing Adolescencethe four -episode TV series that is breaking every streaming record on Netflix.
The parents of digital natives are increasingly understanding him: It is not enough, at home, to transmit values ​​and practice dialoguewe must also limit the devices of the children both to introduce them and then to use them – smartphones after the age of 14, the social networks after 16, all experts now repeat it, limit the hours on screens, etc. Yet, while returning to this group of countercurrent parents (which also includes famous such as Messi and Ronaldo, as well as Novak Djokovich), having a daughter to whom a smartphone will be given only at the end of the third grade and being the only family in the whole school to do it, watch Adolescence It opened my eyes: Nobody is safe. And I immediately felt overwhelmed.

Adolescence The parable of the “normal” Miller family follows in an English village, whose serenity is abruptly interrupted by the armed arid of the police one morning: The thirteen -year -old son “very normal” Jamie – who has my daughter’s age – is arrested on charges of femicide of a schoolmate, Katie. Four hours later, to the end of the series, we know that the boy is guilty, but not much more than the question: “How could he happen?”. One response seems to give it Eddie, played by Stephen Graham, co-creator and co-writer of the series, in the final scene: he embraces Jamie’s bear, who remained on the bed of his bedroom and tells him: “I’m sorry, I should have done better.”

Because the problem, as a dialogue with his wife suggests, is just The bedroom: we thought that if our son was in the bedroom he was safe. Instead no. It is precisely in that bedroom that, thanks to a computer, it came into contact with the “handmosphere” and the groups of “involuntary celebi”, or Incel, misogynist, sexist and violent community. Of course, then there are social networks and bullying, and the comparison with others: that amplify the discomfort, but the discomfort is born before. Therefore no consolation neither for distracted parents nor for the most attentive onesthat perhaps they had deluded that the bedroom was far from the now rotten village and that the rotten was above all on social networks. Various psychologists and experts in these days have formulated explanations and advice for parents for “not ending like Miller”. All are worth and must be read. To take away the feeling of total impotence I had in the end, however, I also made other considerations.

Ask sex education

There is no doubt that One of the themes of the series is masculinity. Not only that of Jamie, who is investigated above all in the third episode with the psychologist and where two shootings arrive. First when Jamie says en passant: «Everyone looks at porn», Revealing the unspoken that every parent of a thirteen year old should have for acquired. The second is the question of the psychologist in response to the embarrassed protests of the boy on intimacy: “But don’t you do sexual education?”, Which said in England has another sense compared to Italy. There they do it, our kids don’t, and it is certainly the time to make more and more pressure to be established by middle schools. In that episode, all the sick indoctrination of Jamie like Incel is also explained, the theory according to which 80 percent of women are attracted by 20 percent of men, concepts well known to all the boy’s companions, friends and enemies.
And in any case, even if there was sex education at school, it is clear how we don’t talk about the topic, however, at home. It is enough to see, in the first episode, the difficulty of physical contact between the father and the son, made at most patches on the shoulder. It will then be understood in the final that Eddie’s trauma, who pass by a violent father who beat him when he was the age of Jamie, came to his son, like a virus that was transmitted. No positive male model, patriarchate and toxic masculinity (the father who does not accept the fragility of the son who is not good at playing football): to be faced they need sex education and education to affectivity, together. For everyone. Why Not even the parents of the females can feel safe. Jamie says he approached Katie when she was more vulnerable, because she had shot a boy from her naked photos and the images had reached the whole school.

You are with them, offline but also online

It is Adam, the son of the detective, another absent father absorbed by the work who knows nothing about bullying that he suffers his son, who makes the drawing »to his father: the red pill that concludes a message apparently cute of Katie, stands for the “red pill”, code language of the incels. It is she who is bullying on social media, giving him substantially of the “loser” after having refused him (parents of the females, again, Alert). The parents, who are not Boomer but Gen X, and are digital alphabetized, still cannot be behind the languages ​​of teenagers. For this reason, however, it is necessary to ask, not only to control the positions on the map or the hearts that calm us down. Watch the videos they watch, talk about it: not so much to prevent them from going to the wrong one (it will happen) But to establish a dialogue also on “uncomfortable” or “embarrassing” things, to develop empathy, to dedicate time. The friend who provides Jamie’s knife and wonders if he too will end up in trouble, will say: “My parents have not said anything”, he has no dialogue with his. But nothing makes you earn more points to say to her son: today I am with you, as the detective with her son does, bringing him out to eat, after a day in which he finally opened his eyes on the world of teenagers. It’s never late, start.

Look for the best teacher and make it a reference

The teachers of the series are not terrible: they are real. Being one of the most delicate works in the world, there should be only inspired people and voted for education. Instead we only see angry garrisons (At the idea of ​​establishing a listening center after the assassination of the student, the manager wonders: “We are also social assistants now?”),, professors who scream against students to suspend, others who try to escape From the class as soon as they can (“the kids are terrible,” says one, refusing the questions of detective), still others who have been behind (“incel? I don’t know anything”says the elementary school teacher). Natural that the investigator at some point ask his colleague: “Do you think someone can learn something here? It looks like a containment fence ». But it is she who gives us a glimmer of hope. When he asks her how she survived her adolescence, the detective replies: “I had a good teacher”. And there is always one. Among the various professors you are looking for what seems to you to listen most, more committed, more devoted to the cause. Every six is ​​scarce, who will probably make it unlanated with your children, will be the one who can make the difference, with which to establish a dialogue, to help each other.

Have you consoled yourself a little, like me? Well. We know, nobody has the magic formula. Without having a murderous son, perhaps we should repeat ourselves as parents The mantra that the psychologist recommends: «I am trying to solve today’s problem. I’m trying to solve today’s problem … ».