As parents, we all want to believe we know what our children are doing, thinking, feeling. We like to think our love, guidance, and open-door policy is enough to keep them safe from harm, peer pressure, and poor choices. But the reality, as highlighted in Netflix’s Adolescence, is far more uncomfortable.
The drama lifts the lid on the hidden world of teenagers today, the double lives, the pressures, the secrets. It shows us how even the most well-meaning, switched-on parents can be completely unaware of what their kids are really up to. Because while we’re making packed lunches and setting curfews, our teens are navigating a minefield of influences we simply can’t control.
We can be the best parent in the world, but that doesn’t stop our children being influenced by others, friends, their favourite YouTubers, TikTok trends, even the characters in their favourite series. And it’s nothing new. Long before social media, I remember the headlines blaming magazines for corrupting young minds. Before that, it was violent video games, explicit films, rock music, MTV. There’s always something to blame. And yet, the root issue rarely changes.
What rarely gets talked about and should be shouted from rooftops is the complete and utter lack of funding for youth provisions. Safe spaces for teens to simply be. Somewhere they can hang out without judgement, access support and advice, connect with youth workers, or just get a hot drink and talk. Places like this used to exist. Now? They’re vanishing. And kids are being left to figure things out online or on the street.
It’s no surprise that when young people feel unseen, unheard, and unsupported, they seek belonging wherever they can find it, even if that’s in toxic friendship groups or harmful online communities. It’s not that kids don’t have morals or sense. It’s that they’re desperate to feel understood, and society’s letting them down.
We owe our children better than this. Not just lectures and rules, not just screen time limits and parental controls but real spaces where they can be themselves, ask the hard questions, and get the right support.
So maybe, instead of just blaming the next trend, the next app, or the next big influence (although they are factors) we should be pointing the finger at where it really belongs: the system that’s failing to invest in the next generation.