Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1211 - The Crisis of Modern Boyhood: What Adolescence (Netflix) Reveals

Transcript

#1211 - The Crisis of Modern Boyhood: What Adolescence (Netflix) Reveals · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: The Netflix series Adolescence has absolutely taken the world by storm.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: It's important and we're going to discuss it today. Welcome
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: to the Happy Families podcast Real Parenting Solutions every day
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin and
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Kylie Coulson, and we sat down. Didn't really want to
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: watch this show, I think would that be a fair
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: a fair way to say it. We knew it was
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: going to be heavy, we knew it was going to
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: be serious, and we wanted something light. But nevertheless, on
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: our wedding anniversary it was not fine, we said, and
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: we watched two episodes and then the next day we
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: finished it off, and we need to talk about Adolescence.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Bye, I haven't done anything.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Here's the plotline. Here's the synopsis. Adolescence opens with a jolt.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: You and I looked at each other, couldn't believe what
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: was going on. Police officers shattered the dawn and the
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: front door of a suburban home to arrest a thirteen
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: year old boy, Jamie Miller, for the murder of Katie Leonard,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: a schoolmate just a couple of years older than him.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: This is not a who done it? We know the perpetrated.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: From the beginning, he pleads and pleads and pleads that
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: he's innocent. You want to believe him, don't you want
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: to believe This is a terrible mistake. But instead of
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: being a murder mystery, the rest of the series is
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: very much about confronting I think a far more unsettling question,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: and that is why, why did this happen? It's shattering,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: it's just devastating. And as soon as all of this occurred,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: we looked at each other and said something along the
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: lines of what is going on here? Like, what does
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: the system do this for? Why are we breaking down
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: doors of thirteen year old boys? What is going on here?
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: It was tragic from the outset.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: That's it, Oh me, it's a cuge. He hasn't been
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: found guilty, been accused. Can you do not do anything
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: to Bardi's I'm sorry, they're entitled to.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of talk at the moment about people
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: pathologizing their difficult events in life and then calling it trauma.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Everything's traumatic yet, But.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: When I watch this experience unfold from the outset, for
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: the parents, for his sister, for him, in spite of
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: his guilt, it is traumatic. The system just creates so
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: much trauma.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about a couple of things that we
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: just need to get clear at the outset. First thing,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: nothing can, nothing should diminish the shattering reality that Katie's
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: life was violently taken. It's devastating. It's how do you
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: find words. I don't know, words really important. I've written
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: about this before, but how do you find words to
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: describe the landscape of grief that her family now has
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to navigate.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, just but it's not just her family. There's
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: a whole community that is now having to cope, deal
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: with confront the reality that she's not there.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Definitely, maybe maybe I can put it this way. They're
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the primary casualties of this catastrophe.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: But then there's also his parents.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: That's right, So this is not it's.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: Not there's just not one victim in this.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: And the show makes that really clear. I don't want
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: to take away from the fact that a young girl's
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: life was taken, that that's the that's the primary concern here,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: But the show then shifts to it and says why,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: and then you see the ripple effect. You see the
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: ramifications in the lives of the parents in the lives
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: of the big sister, the utter, utter devastation that occurs
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: in everyone's life who is touched by this awful tragedy.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: But I do you sometimes think we should have stopped it.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Seeing it and stopped it.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: We can't do later then what she said, it's an
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: awful I can't blame ourself, but we made them.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: So I'm writing my book about raising boys. In fact,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I'm in the process of finishing the conclusion. This TV
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: show made me have to rewrite a whole lot of
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: stuff in my book, which I was so grateful for.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: And here's our challenge with Jamie. We've got this kid
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: who's been raised in a home with loving parents. Were
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: they perfect, not even close, but they are loving parents,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: and they've done their best to give him a good education.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: He's a smart kid, but he has been transformed, I
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: would say, methodically, by a toxic ecosystem that most parents
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: fail to comprehend. And I think that's why the show
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: has dropped like a bomb across our entire Western society,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: because parents simply aren't aware of what's going on. Eight
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: percent of women are attracted to twenty percent of men.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: You must trick them because you'll never get them in
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: a normal way.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: Do you think, though, that parents are watching this and
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: just it as a really far fetched storyline that would
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: never occur to them, Like, does this hit home that
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: this is actually someone's reality and it could be mine
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: if I don't take precautions to pre arm my child
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: and my family in general. Do you really think that
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: this is seeping in and the messages getting out to
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: people that it actually it takes a village, an entire village.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: It's not just about mum and dad doing their job.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: It's about the school system doing their job. It's about
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: law enforcement doing their like, it's about the community at
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: large taking responsibility for the system that we are either
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: part of creating or part of indulging.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let me respond to the first part of
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: your question, and that is, do you think that it's
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: something that parents are really going to absorb Because there's
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: a murder that's taken place, Let's pretend that that didn't happen.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Let's just have a look at what's happening daily in
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the lives of our children. A couple of weeks ago,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: on my Facebook page, we had a week of NonStop
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: conversation and content around the misogynistic, horrendous threats that primarily
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: boys are making towards girls in schools. Parents unfortunately don't
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: get it, and our kids hide it from us completely
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: in every way. So this has real world implications for
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: every single family. The likelihood that anyone who's listened to
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: this right now is going to have a son who's
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: going to go and commit this kind of heinous and
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: treacherous crime very very very unlikely. But the likelihood that
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: anyone who's listened to this right now is going to
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: have a child who will either be a perpetrator or
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: a victim of some kind of misogynistic or abusive behavior
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: almost almost guaranteed. And so the conversation really, I mean,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: this is a podcast with real parenting solutions. The conversation
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: has to be brought back to what's going on with
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: the system. Jamie wasn't born violence in his veins. Jamie
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: and countless boys like him are. Actually I'm going to
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: turn the perpetrator into a victim for a moment, because
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: he is now. He's not a victim like the murder victim.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: He's not a victim like the girls who are on
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the receiving end of all of these vile messages. But
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: he is a victim of a toxic ecosystem that is
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: not allowing him to build an identity and navigate puberty
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: in a healthy and safe way. The system feeds on
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: our children's vulnerability with predator. I can't say the word
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: predatory efficiency. It is exquisitely built by the best brains
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: in the world for one reason and one reason only.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Addiction pull people in regardless of the cost.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: Well, it's not addiction, it's money, right.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Well, addiction gives them, gives them money, that's right. The
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: system's designed. The incentives are all I get money the
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: more addicted you are to discord or to Instagram or
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: to whatever. And this is the other thing. It doesn't
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: happen in the dark corners of the dark web. It's
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: happening in full view of everybody on the bigger platform
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: on the planet. It's happening on Instagram.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: So I've kind of went on a bit of a
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: tangent because of your question. But I'm writing a book
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: about it, my book in the first part, I can't
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: wait for this book to come out. It's going to
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: be out about a year now, because there's a lot
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: to go into the publishing of the book. But I
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: unpack this thing called the boy code. I talk about
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: the man box, and I have a look at research
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: that investigates something called precarious masculinity. These are the main
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: feeders into this toxic ecosystem that is amplified and absolutely
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: blown up by the social media landscape. So here we've
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: got this thing called the in cell community. I don't
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: know if you're familiar with in cells previously. In cell
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: means being involuntarily celibate. And I just can't get past
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: the fact that this kid is thirteen years old and
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: he's being mocked by his peers because he's celibate involuntarily.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: He's thirteen, he's thirteen, He's supposed to be celibate. It's
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: just astonishing.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: It's not even a word for a thirteen year old.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Goodness, oh my goodness, it's just devastating. So after the break,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: my take and what we can do, all right, Kylie,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: here's my take. Adolescence is not just television. It's a
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: spotlight that illuminates a reality that I think most parents
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: are unaware of or are unwilling or reluctant to acknowledge.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: As parents, I think that we actually collude in our
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: own ignorance. It's like we smear vasily and across the
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: lens of our perception when it comes to our children
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: and their digital lives, and we just can't do that.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: We just cannot do it. Everyone bears responsibility. The tech
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: companies are accumulating the greatest fortunes ever built in the
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: history of the world, while denying responsibility for the toxic
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: spaces that they've created. You said it at the outset
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: of the podcast. Our justice system is processing damaging children
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: through machinery that's been designed for adults. Most educational institutions
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: have failed to create cold Is that nurture emotional intelligence
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: or emotional safety at school? Oh? This blew me away,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: and they did it so well. The brutal, casual lack
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: of empathy that the school kids displayed at the death
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: of one of their classmates, with one exception, her best friend.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: The kids were morbidly enthusiastically fascinated by it, telling jokes
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: about it, egging people on like it was atrocious. This
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: is why you and I. I mean this has been
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: a recurring theme on the podcast for a while now.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: This is why you and I keep on saying it's
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: not good to have a whole bunch of kids hanging
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: out with limited supervision over an extended period of time. Yeah,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: let kids spend time together, but they need good people
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: in their lives monitoring and supervising and being a role
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: model and showing them what to do. And the schools
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: just have no control over these kids at all. Terrible.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: This is a hard thing for me to say. I
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: don't like throwing shade at parents, but parents and not
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: doing the job when it comes to kids and screens
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and in the case of the show, in general boundaries.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: So this is going to take you off track a
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: little bit. But my question is how do parents safeguard
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: their children against a monster they don't even understand? Like
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. I
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: don't want to know what's out there, Like I don't
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: want to fill my life, my mind, my heart, my
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: soul with the just depravity of content that's available. And
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: yet if I'm not across it, how do I talk
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: to my children in ways that actually speaks to them?
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: So if they just look at us, we're dummies, right,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: that's right, we see that in the show.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: We don't have a clue what's going on with.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Kids I wouldn't understand right in front of you and
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: you can't see it. Yeah, yeah, you're making yourself look
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: dumb dad.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And I loved that scene specifically where the cops
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: son pulls them aside and goes, you're missing it. It's
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: a looking right in front of you and you're missing
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: it because there is a whole another language that you
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: don't understand.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: So two things. First of all, the Internet has spawned
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of articles for parents who want to
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: understand what all the emojis mean and what's really going on.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: So that's one thing, and it does pay to be
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: across it. However, I'm going to argue that you don't
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: need to be across everything. It's impossible to be across everything,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: and it's not necessarily productive. What's productive is having consistent
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: interaction with and closeness with your children, knowing what's going
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: on in their lives, talking to them about it. I mean,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: we've got to talk about the parenting in this show.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: First off, we discovered that dad doesn't know how to
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: relate to his son. His son loves drawing, his son
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: loves a bunch of stuff that Dad doesn't understand. Dad
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: wants him to play soccer for football, and he wants
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: him to get into boxing, and both of those things
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: the Jamie just fails and Dad is embarrassed by his
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: son's ineptitude. From a physicality point of view, well, he's
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: not a man notions of masculinity absolutely, So Jamie feels
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: like a failure. But Dad's doing long hours. Mum and
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Dad are kind of removed, but Jamie's out walking the
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: streets with his buddies. He's in his room on his devices,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: and there's a general lack of supervision. His parents are
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: not in his lives. They love him deeply, they care
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: for him in profound appropriate ways, but they don't know
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: how to be in his life in the ways that
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: he needs them. And this is the critical thing to
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: answer your question. Really, you don't have to be across it.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: You just have to be in your kids' lives to
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: a point where they trust you. Trust means I believe
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: you'll act in my best interests. And Jamie doesn't feel
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: connected to his parents, doesn't feel like they're going to
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: act in his best interests because they don't understand each other.
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: She is a model, I think because if we accept
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: it that maybe we should doeth was to think.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: That that, to me is the big message. There's more,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: but in the interest of time, that's that's where I
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: want to sort of wrap that up. We need to
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: be in our kids' lives. Let's move to a conclusion,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: because we could talk for days about this. Here's what
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: I write on Facebook, and I'll just get your take
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: on it and some last thoughts. Here's the uncomfortable truth.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: At this moment, thousands of boys are hunched over screens,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: absorbing the same poisonous narratives that transformed Jamie from a
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: confused adolescent into a killer. They're being gradually radicalized while
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: we attend to daily routines, often unaware of the transformation
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: occurring under our roofs. Our boys are being robbed of
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to develop into men, unburdened by these destructive
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: conceptions of masculinity. Their childhoods aren't gently transitioning. They're being
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: compressed and corrupted by digital influences, while adults remain largely
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: oblivious to the damage. The technology companies won't intervene, educational
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: systems are overwhelmed, the justice system is ill equipped, and
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: our boys continue to fall through widening cracks, emerging either
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: broken by these pre or breaking others. In response, Adolescence
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: offers no simple solutions. It simply holds up a mirror
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: to a collective failure and asks what kind of society
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: permits its children to be corrupted in digital spaces until
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: they either implode or explode? Katie is dead, Jamie is shattered,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: and the machinery that created this tragedy continues to operate
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: indifferent to the human cost. I reckon, I write some
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: good stuff, but let's not talk about my writing at
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: the end of the series, And as you reflect on it,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: what would you want parents to know?
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: For me, it's that you can't underestimate the influence that
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: you can have in your child's life by taking the
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: time to be with them, by taking the time to
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: understand them, by taking the time to allow them the
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: care free childhood that they deserve.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: I just wish our kids could have the childhood he
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: had before screens. Oh my goodness, adolescence. If you haven't
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: watched it, buckled in, It's not going to be an
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: easy shot of you. But I would suggest the following.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Allocate four hours, get some snacks, go to the bathroom,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: because once you stop, you're not going to want to
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: turn it off, and once those credits roll at the
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: end of the fourth episode, you will sit there for
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: an extended period of time trying to comprehend what you've
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: just seen. Such an important show. I really hope that
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: they get a second series because it is It's a
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: conversation starter. Hold those kids close. Thanks so much for
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: listening to the Happy Families podcast, which is produced by
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Justin Roland from Bridge Media. If you would like more
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: information and more resources to make your family happier and
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: protect your kids, we've got them. They're at happy families
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: dot com dot au.