Netflix’s Adolescence Is The Wake-Up Call Many Parents Need

Our 5 biggest takeaways from the hit miniseries

Scene from Netflix’s Adolescence. Photo courtesy of Netflix. Used for educational purposes.

As a leader in the space for over a decade, the ScreenStrong team often gets asked to comment or respond to various articles, books, and other media being published about screens and screen addiction. Over the past few weeks, we have received lots of requests to comment on Netflix’s limited series, Adolescence.

Parents want to know if we’ve seen it and if we have any thoughts about it. Our answer? Yes, and ohhhhh, yes. Though the miniseries isn’t perfect by any means, it does shed light on many important issues affecting teens and families today.

Before we get into what these issues are, here’s a bit of background for those who have not seen it: Adolescence is a four-part miniseries about a 13-year-old boy (Jamie) who is accused of murdering a female classmate. This is not your typical “whodunit” crime drama, though. Instead, it focuses on the “why” of how such a tragic, violent event like this came to be.

As the series progresses, the true culprit emerges, and that culprit is not a person, but rather a culture. Namely, it’s the online culture these young people are living in via social media.

It’s an upsetting, important series, to say the least, and one that every parent should watch.

Whether you have seen the show or are planning to see it, here are 5 important lessons to walk away with.

1) The teenage brain is immature

The first episode largely revolves around Jamie’s denial of his role in this crime despite the evidence. Again and again, he tells his father, “I did nothing wrong” and “You have to believe me.” His father does—until he can’t.

The impulsivity and brazenness of Jamie’s actions, especially when combined with his shock at being caught, seem illogical to us as adults: how could he not think this would catch up with him? But we need to remember that Jamie is not an adult. He is a teenager with a teenage brain that’s not fully developed yet, especially when it comes to impulse control and decision-making.

Though it’s clear Jamie is quite intelligent, this intelligence does not translate to maturity because maturity is something that only comes with time (lots of it, in fact— nearly 3 decades!). We cannot expect teenagers like Jamie to successfully navigate adult arenas, like the internet, and make good decisions. In fact, we can expect them to make impulsive, potentially life-altering decisions when given full, unsupervised access to the adult world.

2) All kids—especially teens!—need to be attached primarily to their families, not their peers

One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the series is how desperately this boy wants the approval of his parents, particularly his father.

Throughout the series, we learn that this father has historically had trouble connecting with his son. As Jamie enters preadolescence, we learn that this disconnect deepens after the father’s job intensified, keeping him at work until well after dinner time. Research confirms that routine conversation times, like family mealtimes, become a critical protective factor in teen mental health, helping them know they are loved and belong.

In this regard, Jamie’s path is not all that remarkable or dramatic, despite its dramatic end. It is a quiet, slippery slope that leads teens to prematurely detach from their families and attach instead to their peers.

To be attached to his peers, Jamie had to adopt their values, however skewed and damaging they were. Jamie’s parents are shocked by their son’s actions, driven by beliefs about women and manhood that they didn’t teach him. Unfortunately, the internet and his peers did teach him to believe those things, and, as we established in Takeaway #1, he had an immature, impressionable brain.

Kids raised by other kids cannot be expected to grow into healthy adults. Despite what modern culture says, our children need more of us in their adolescent years, not less.

3) Teens crave to be liked and to belong

Teens are driven—above all else—by a deep craving to be liked, accepted, and to belong. This desire isn’t just part of their life right now—it rules it. The series captured this reality with stunning accuracy.

This powerful need for social approval is often the invisible force behind your teen’s choices, behaviors, and emotional highs and lows. To them, fitting in can feel as critical as life or death, and often clouds their judgment and distorts their priorities.

That’s why strong, steady parental guidance is essential during these years. As teens begin to assert independence, they still desperately need a secure compass—you—to help them navigate the overwhelming pull of peer influence. Like an athlete without a coach, your teen will never reach his or her full potential without your influence.

4) Parents can never fully understand the social media world of a teen

Social media plays a huge role in this series, particularly in the communication between Jamie and his female classmates. Even with the screenshots right in front of them, the teachers, police, and other adults in the series don’t understand what they are seeing; they need another teenager to interpret it for them.

This points to the hard truth: even if you’re diligently monitoring your child’s online activity and communications, it might not be doing any good. Seemingly innocent emojis can mean something totally different to your child than they do to you.

Instead of trying to stay on top of every emoji or new slang word that the internet cooks up (which is an impossible task), there is a better option. ScreenStrong recommends no social media through high school to put the most impressionable, habit-forming years of brain development behind them.

5) Even “good” kids from “good” families can get into huge trouble when left alone online

With most stories like this, it’s easy for parents to say, “Not my kid” or “Only a psychopath would do that.” But what Adolescence really drives home is that even stable kids from stable families can wind up in really horrific, life-altering scenarios when left alone with the internet.

Jamie’s parents are “good” parents. They love their kids. They work hard to provide for them. Their biggest mistake was being unaware of the dangers of social media. Because “all” teens were doing what Jamie was doing, they thought it was okay.

In the last episode, when reflecting on Jamie’s case, his parents talk about how they always assumed he was safe because he was home in his room on the computer. And what trouble could he get into on the computer? The worst thing Jamie’s dad thought his son would be exposed to was a bit of porn “like every other teen boy.” While any pornography exposure is dangerous and unhealthy, parents need to realize that social media access can be just as damaging and even deadly for a teenager.

What do we wish we could have told Jamie’s parents?

We wish we could have told them that their son spending all his free time alone in his room on the computer wasn’t healthy. We wish we could have told them how vulnerable their son’s brain is and how he needs his parents to step up and make the hard decisions on his behalf.

We wish we could have told them that seemingly small decisions like foregoing family dinner time can change the trajectory of influence in a teen's life, and if job or life circumstances change, there are ways to compensate, be creative, and replace that time together.

We wish we could have given Jamie’s family a copy of our new Kids’ Brains & Screens Home Edition early on so that they could have learned the brain science behind screen use, as well as the risks and warning signs of problematic screen use.

Of course, Jamie’s TV family is not real. But yours is. And these same messages are all things we want to say to you.

If Adolescence has resonated with you, if it has made you aware of dangerous differences between the online world and the real world, and sparked a desire to make changes around toxic screen use in your home, you're not alone—and we're here to help. At ScreenStrong, we bring over a decade of experience in what truly works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to preventing and reversing screen overuse in kids.

What sets us apart is that our solution wasn’t born out of a cultural panic or a quick reaction to headlines. It results from years of hands-on work with families just like yours—and like Jamie’s. We’ve studied the patterns, identified the triggers, and built a proven, science-backed, and straightforward approach to help parents take back control and rescue their kids.

Are you ready to take the bold step to stop living in worry and fear? We’ve got your back. Get educated, join the community of parents who are choosing a better path. We will show you how to make adolescence the most enriching time in your child’s life and how to educate your kids about all the changes you are making in your home to help get them on board.

Order your copy of the Home Edition here and take the first step towards your family’s happier, healthier future.

ScreenStrong Resources

Podcast—“‘He Was A Good Kid’: The Truth Behind the Netflix Show Adolescence”

Podcast—“From 16,000 Videos to Real Life: Colin’s Screen Detox Story”

Melanie Hempe, BSN, is the founder of ScreenStrong, a nonprofit organization, and the author of the Kids’ Brains and Screens Series for students and parents. She is dedicated to preventing and reversing childhood screen addictions by providing scientific evidence and a community for families around the globe. Her educational material is filled with everything she wished she had known before her oldest child suffered from a screen addiction. ScreenStrong has created what every family needs—education and the community—to skip toxic screens through adolescence so teens can reach their full potential.

Visit here to book a speaker for your community, here for family resource materials, and here for our Phone-Free Schools Guide, and visit ScreenStrong.org to learn more and join the community that is saving childhood.