What Parents Need to Take Away From “Adolescence”

In 1966, the BBC aired a groundbreaking television play titled Cathy Come Home. It followed a young couple navigating unemployment, poverty, and homelessness while raising three young children. The impact was seismic—questions were raised in Parliament, public awareness surged, and a new charity, Shelter, was born to tackle the crisis of homelessness in the UK. Cathy has since been routinely listed among the most important television broadcasts in British history.

Now, nearly six decades later, a new series has emerged that could have a similar cultural impact—Adolescence, the four-part Netflix drama that’s igniting an international conversation about boys, masculinity, and the dark underbelly of digital life. The show takes viewers into the fraught journey of teenage boys navigating toxic masculinity, online radicalization, misogyny, violence, and the growing influence of social media personalities like Andrew Tate and Adin Ross.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who watched the series with his teenage children, has since spoken out about the hidden radicalization of boys in the “manosphere.” Former England football manager Gareth Southgate recently delivered a compelling lecture, urging society to offer better role models for young men. And like Cathy Come Home before it, Adolescence is now sparking political action with its creators invited to testify before Parliament.

As the founder of the Family Online Safety Institute, I’ve spent years studying the online landscape that shapes our children’s development. Adolescence captures something both timely and timeless: the struggle to understand our kids, and to help them navigate a world that has become exponentially more complex, particularly online. Here are three key lessons I believe parents—and all of us—can take away from the series.

1. Technology is Just One Part of the Puzzle

One of the series’ most important contributions is its refusal to pin the blame on a single cause. Co-writer and star Stephen Graham, who plays the father of the troubled teen Jamie, repeatedly emphasizes that there is no one villain. Jamie’s descent is the product of many overlapping factors: bullying messages, online influencers, aggression, lack of boundaries, and yes—the quiet glow of a computer screen in a boy’s bedroom, late at night.

This holistic view stands in stark contrast to the current wave of techno-alarmism, most notably expressed by Jonathan Haidt in his recent book The Anxious Generation. Haidt pins the so-called youth mental health crisis squarely on smartphones and social media and has advocated for sweeping policy changes such as banning social media for all under-16s and eliminating phones from schools altogether.

While these proposals may be well-intentioned, they are dangerously simplistic. Bans may appeal to overwhelmed parents, teachers, and politicians, but they ignore the full complexity of the problem and risk creating unintended consequences—such as pushing vulnerable kids into more hidden corners of the internet.

We don’t need silver bullets. We need a whole-of-society approach—one that recognizes the shared responsibility of parents, educators, policymakers, tech companies, and young people themselves. As they say, it takes a village.

2. Parents Must Set Boundaries—and Be Equipped to Do So

In Adolescence, Jamie’s mother regretfully recalls finding her son on his computer late into the night, with little understanding of what he was doing online. It’s a scenario that will sound unnervingly familiar to many parents today.

Too often, parents feel powerless in the face of technology. Devices have become omnipresent, and many parents were never taught how to manage these tools—let alone teach their children to use them safely. But rather than retreat into fear or passivity, we need to empower parents with practical guidance and tools.

At FOSI, we recommend setting clear, age-appropriate boundaries that include:

• No screens in the bedroom overnight
• Tech-free time during meals and family conversations
• Establishing screen time limits and device curfews
• Using parental controls and monitoring tools appropriately—not secretly

Rules alone aren’t enough. They must be paired with ongoing conversations, mutual respect, and consistency across caregivers.

3. Conversations Are the Most Powerful Tool We Have

When asked what he hopes viewers take away from the show, series co-creator Jack Thorne shared a powerful call to action:

“Listen to kids. They’re really vulnerable right now, and they need you.”

At FOSI, we echo that message every day. The single most effective tool a parent has when it comes to online safety isn’t any one app, filter, or restriction—it’s conversation. Open, honest, and regular communication helps build trust, create space for kids to share, and ensures that when something does go wrong, children know they can turn to their parents without fear or shame.

Ask questions. Be curious. Sit beside your child and ask them to show you their favorite app or creator. Don’t just monitor their digital lives—engage with them. Create a family culture where it’s normal to talk about tech, about feelings, and about the world they’re navigating—online and off.

Adolescence holds up a mirror to our society—and it does so with a sharp, unflinching gaze. It asks all of us to reflect on how we’ve gotten here and how we can do better for children. It challenges us to have the conversations we’ve avoided, to set the boundaries we’ve postponed, and to recognize that the solution to these deep-rooted issues isn’t to retreat from technology but to engage with it—and with our kids—more wisely, more openly, and more often.

If Cathy Come Home helped spark a national reckoning with homelessness, Adolescence could very well become the catalyst for a much-needed reckoning with how we raise, protect, and guide our children in the digital age.