Everybody’s talking about the Netflix show Adolescence. It is going to be seen as THE television show with most impact this year, following on from the ITV drama Mr Bates versus the Post Office, which finally triggered action from parliament.
Adolescence has got everybody talking, but do we see its impact being political?
A UK MP has called for children to see the programme in schools, and no less than the Prime Minister has agreed that there is a need to tackle ‘the emerging and growing problem’ raised by the show.
But it’s unlikely that the initial solution will be political. Many local politicians are likely to have very little connection with the issues raised. The prospect of legislating our way out of who can see what and when, and then policing it, are slim.
But these factors hit hard with parents of teenage, or soon-to-be teenage children. There is sound information today from the police’s digital safety development officer, and real-life experience from one of our writers and her child.
That advice – to share time and conversation with our children – seems both beguilingly accurate and pleasingly simple. Easy to say, not so easy to do. The best way to address these issues has to be as parents and as the strong community that we are – not to leave it to the law.
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