Netflix’s new hit Adolescence isn’t an easy watch – and perhaps that’s precisely why every educator should check it out.
This gritty dramatisation of teen life isn’t just gripping TV. It’s a disturbing case study in what happens when a generation of boys is raised on a constant diet of comparison, competition and unrelenting shame.
It’s a diet rich in online highlight reels. The toxic “alpha male” role models. The relentless race to be seen, liked, followed. A warped scoreboard where emotional restraint equals weakness, empathy equals softness and status is everything.
In the show, that diet doesn’t just produce wounded kids – it produces dangerous ones. The plot twists might be fictional, but the conditions that shape them are all too real. And just like one Big Mac can’t be blamed for a heart attack, no single TikTok video can be held responsible for the way some boys eventually explode.
But the diet matters.
When you feed boys a worldview where their worth hinges on outdoing the next guy – and never revealing any of their actual feelings – you get a particular kind of outcome. It’s not always violence, but it’s almost always brokenness. And sometimes, tragically, it’s both.
This isn’t inevitable.
When young men are nourished instead by compassion, foresight and insight, something else starts to grow. They become capable of predicting how others might be impacted by their choices. They build a relational radar. They learn that strength and vulnerability can live in the same room.
That’s not a fantasy. That’s what good schools already do, but only when they’re intentional about it.
Restorative practices. Student voice. Safe relationships with trusted adults. These aren’t soft, feel-good extras. They’re preventative care. They’re the difference between a kid internalising “You’re a problem,” and learning to say, “I made a mistake and I can fix it.”
Adolescence doesn’t let anyone off the hook. And nor should we. Kids still need clear boundaries. They still need to be held to high standards of behaviour. But they also need something else, especially our boys.
They need a better diet. Because, in the end, they are what they eat.
Keep fighting that good fight,
P.S. It’s tough out there in schools, and the results we saw in the latest Principal Wellbeing Survey this week further illustrate that fact.
Teachers are nation builders. You play a critical role in building the future of our nation and I want to express my sincere gratitude to each and every one of you for the work you do in schools every day.
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