Showing Adolescence in schools lets parents off the hook

Parents are up in arms. The Prime Minister’s decision to allow all state secondary schools to screen Adolescence, the scary Netflix series about a 13-year-old murdering a classmate for taunting him online as being undesirable, has parenting groups fuming.

Keir Starmer believes that showing the drama will teach adolescents about the dangers lurking online which are driving toxic relationships. Parents argue instead that the move risks subjecting school children as young as 11 to violent and sexual content. The roll-out has the potential to harm those children who have experienced similarly abusive relationships, alienating and retraumatising them. The content, they say, is age-inappropriate and messages misconstrued.

These parents are right: this is no way to teach children about relationships. But not for the reasons they give.

One in three 11-year-olds admits to watching porn – and these days, that means almost inevitably violent images, with strangulation a routine if illegal practice.