#91 "Unveiling the Hidden Messages: A Deep Dive into Adolescence - Episode 3"

#ParentingTeens #TeenAdvice #AdolescenceSeries #SocialMediaAwareness #TeenMentalHealth #ParentingPodcast #CherylPankhurst #InsightToImpact #TeenCulture #DigitalParenting
Welcome to another insightful episode of "Parenting Teens: Advice Redefined for Today's Complex World." I'm your host, Cheryl Pankhurst, and today we continue our special four-part series on the Netflix show, *Adolescence*. In this third episode, we delve into the intricate layers of teenage behavior, exploring the underlying messages of masculinity, peer pressure, and the impact of social media.

Join me as we discuss the pivotal role of a psychologist assessing a 13-year-old boy accused of a serious crime. We'll uncover the disturbing realities of modern teen culture, including the hidden meanings behind emojis and the pressures of fitting into societal norms. This episode is a wake-up call for parents, educators, and caring adults to stay informed and vigilant in understanding the digital world our teens navigate.

Cheryl
00:01 - 00:20
Welcome to another episode of Parenting Teens Advice Redefined for today's complex world. And I am Cheryl Pankhurst, I'm your host and I'm really happy you're here. I'm so grateful you spent some time with me. This is a special series of episodes.

Cheryl
00:20 - 01:05
So it is a four part series of my take on the Netflix show, Adolescence. This is number three. Episode number three if you have not seen this show, this is your spoiler alert So turn me off go watch episode one two and three and then come back and see this and neck the next episode After this will be four. There's only four in the whole series if you are Just watching for the entertainment great but I highly recommend that there are educators administrators parents any kind of Caring adult who knows a teen You're watching this and really listen to the underlying messages There is so much in

Speaker 1
01:05 - 01:33
here. I actually have notes this time because I cannot miss this. There's so much going on underlying messages in all of this and it's so disturbing and we need to be aware of the things that there's things in here I was teaching for 25 plus years and no clue about half of this stuff, no clue. And I know times have changed and I've been out of it for a couple of years, but this is something that we need to get our heads wrapped around, you know.

Speaker 1
01:35 - 02:14
Technology can be wonderful, but with things like social media and now the language behind social media that we have no idea what's going on, we need to catch up. They just are 20 miles ahead of us and we need to catch up if we're going to be aware of and keep our kids safe. So again, if you haven't seen shut me off right now come back watch all four but uh today we are on episode three out of four On adolescence the netflix series adolescence. So just a little backstory Uh, in the first episode, we learned that there's a 13 year old who was suspected of murder.

Speaker 1
02:14 - 02:25
So he was arrested in the first episode right away. He's 13. He was arrested for the suspected stabbing of a classmate of his. So both 13.

Speaker 1
02:26 - 03:06
By the end of the first episode we see a video closed circuit tv of him Actually doing a stabbing action to this girl and that's where she was found deceased I guess in the first episode they need to look for a motive and they need to look for a weapon. So that's part of the investigation And so we get into the third episode. This is so interesting to me because they now have a psychologist come in who has to do an independent assessment of him to understand, and she says this multiple times through the discussion and sessions with Jamie, she needs to have an understanding of his understanding.

Speaker 1
03:07 - 03:51
So obviously looking for mental illness, looking for revenge, looking for an understanding of what he's done, understanding of death, an understanding of sex, an understanding of masculinity, pornography, all of it. So that's her role here. And so it just kind of shifts the whole legal and emotional tone of the process. And it's so enlightening when she first even walks into the juvenile center where he's being held, And is talking to one of the guards and he is literally flirting with openly flirting with her She's there in a professional manner He is supposed to be a professional guard in

Speaker 1
03:51 - 04:23
this juvenile detention center And he's flirting with her and just making it very obvious he wasn't taking her role very seriously. And in her role, she is not reacting at all. I found that interesting to wonder if they are trying to say that she is so desensitized to this because this is the culture that she's used to. And in the first three episodes, they sprinkle in this whole discussion about masculinity and the power over women, the dominance over women.

Speaker 1
04:24 - 05:02
So it was really interesting that in the first two minutes of the episode. This is what we were seeing so the psychologist she's very Even she maintains like this neutral composed demeanor Even as the guard flirts with her as we kind of get a glimpse into that whole piece and she never really She never really reacts until she has to react in the middle of the episode. But this, there just seems to be this, you know, familiarity with this kind of behavior from her peers or colleagues or men that she works with.

Speaker 1
05:03 - 05:23
It was really disturbing. So she goes into me with Jamie. This is obviously not her first session with him. They have this like, Familiarity it's a little unsettling because he's 13 year old boy, and he really feels seems to feel a little comfortable with her in a In an odd way.

Speaker 1
05:23 - 05:54
I mean she's he knows she's there to decide whether he could have done this crime or not and You know, it just kind of reflects almost this I might be 13, but you're a woman and So I feel a little more familiar with you. The themes of masculinity is kind of thread through the whole series. It becomes really deeply personal. Jamie is defensive when he's asked anything about his father.

Speaker 1
05:54 - 06:30
So she goes into the session about, I just want to get your understanding and launches into talking about his dad. And I've mentioned in the first two episodes, His dad was the one that was his appropriate adult the one that sits in on all the meetings never asked for his mom Immediately responded. I want my dad every time they asked if he needed some kind of support from an adult And even his mom kind of said why would they pick you? I don't understand why they picked you but he was very quick to pick his dad every time and yet When he Was questioned about his dad.

Speaker 1
06:30 - 07:03
He just jumped on He never hit me, he never hit my mom, like he just jumped into this real defensive mode. So it was kind of a contrast in the way that he depended on his dad to be supporting him and yet was almost overly defensive of him. I thought that was interesting. As we're listening to the sessions, You know, we get these glimpses of this 13-year-old boy, sort of thinking, oh, he's 13, he's so young.

Speaker 1
07:03 - 07:23
And in the first two episodes, it's also insinuated that he was bullied by the victim. And it almost made you feel bad, like, oh, he had a reason. He had, there's his motive as being bullied. How badly are you bullied to commit murder?

Speaker 1
07:24 - 08:10
But as he continues to go through these sessions, the session with the psychologist, he is a 13 year old boy answering some questions and then she could just trigger him. If he thought he was losing control of the conversation, he would fly into this rage and it was very disproportionate to what she was asking or how the conversation was going. It just didn't coordinate with how he could get a little bit angry, but he was going over the top. So there was this rage and he would stand over her, he would try and intimidate her, get in her space and raise his voice and almost dare her to react.

Speaker 1
08:11 - 08:55
And in contrast, when the male guard came in to see what was happening in this, what was all the promotion was about, He immediately spoke with respect to the male guard So as they started talking into the session They started talking about identity and security and peer pressure and he was asked about girls and his immediate response is i'm not gay He really revealed that he had this like internalized shame and internalized Was it peer pressure? The sex topics triggered deflection. He questioned if she's even allowed to talk about the sex questions He admits seeing porn and it was very normalized that all everybody sees porn.

Speaker 1
08:55 - 09:31
Don't they 13? And katie's rejection of him Was interesting. So I guess katie had her picture displayed on snapchat with no top on and in his attempt to be with Katie, he took in a defensive mode for her and decided that if she was weak because her pitcher had been out, so she was vulnerable, she was weak, that maybe she would go out with him.

Speaker 1
09:33 - 09:55
And when she rejected him and even went to the point of saying, I'm not that desperate, he immediately went into a rage, even talking about it. And she called him this incel. So this is this term that they used. call was the explanation was in celibate, meaning if she called him in celibate, he would never have sex.

Speaker 1
09:55 - 10:12
He would never find a girl. He would never be with somebody because he was ugly and not attractive. And they started then talk again about that 80-20 rule. So 80 of the girls liked 20 of the boys So the boys really felt like this.

Speaker 1
10:13 - 10:38
There's this pressure to get in so jamie figured. Oh, she's weak her picture has been distributed now I can get her because now i'm part of the 20 And when she rejected him on that it became very evident that he really felt a rage about getting rejected And he even said, at one point, he didn't have a girl because he was ugly. He thought he was ugly.

Speaker 1
10:39 - 10:47
And the psychologist said nothing. And he immediately said, aren't you supposed to contradict me? Aren't you supposed to argue with me? Shouldn't you be saying I'm not ugly?

Speaker 1
10:47 - 10:52
Isn't that your job? Isn't that your job? Which I thought was really interesting, because where is he getting this from? He's 13.

Speaker 1
10:52 - 11:37
I think what really got me to here is You know, it almost looked like he had every right to do what he did because she was bullying him. And then when we saw the rage. You know, Jamie was definitely a victim of being bullied, but you know, in all the training I've ever done, I've done lots of risk assessment. I worked with Kevin Cameron, who works on all the school shootings and trains a lot of admin and special education specialists and guidance counselors, at least in the Durham board, around, you know, for an assessment and there's a level one and there's a level two.

Speaker 1
11:38 - 12:06
And the one thing they always talked about is that no one ever snaps. There is always underlying things that have happened and it might seem like they're very isolated incidents. It might seem like they're just one-offs, very innocent little one-off. But when you put them all together in a risk assessment, then you say, oh, Okay, there's this, there's this, there's this, there's all these signs.

Speaker 1
12:06 - 12:39
Kids, people, not even just kids, people don't just snap. They have this underlying buildup. and layers of things happening before they actually Come to the conclusion of their Incident their violent incidents, so they're not just snapping and we need to be aware of this We need to be looking at if we have these little incidents and if we're not even aware of what's happening in social media if we're not aware of what's going on instagram then we have nowhere to look, we have nowhere to find.

Speaker 1
12:39 - 12:52
So this, I think this series is fantastic for even just that. Can you now go back and look at your kid's Instagram? Can you talk about bullying? Can you talk about Snapchat?

Speaker 1
12:52 - 13:21
Can you, and I know the Snapchat disappears really quickly, but can you even, if your kids know that you're aware of Snapchat, maybe they would be a little more cautious about using Snapchat. It's really, the episode really blurs the lines about motive. Is it just bullying? Or is there this whole rage and this culture of this masculinity and the expectation of being masculine?

Speaker 1
13:22 - 13:34
And when they talk a lot about his dad and his dad's rages, Is that all part of it? His dad rages, his dad tore down his shed. When she said, how does dad treat mom? He just right away said, he doesn't hit her.

Speaker 1
13:34 - 13:47
He doesn't hit me. It's almost like this real trigger response. And we keep having to remember that this kid is 13. And I think they even obviously picked a kid who looks like a very young 13.

Speaker 1
13:48 - 14:08
So it's so hard to watch this and think, oh my gosh, in 13 years, this is where you're at. We need to be very aware. Can you go through your kids' Instagram and look at messages? And there's something that was in this episode that I thought was really interesting, and I'm going to read it so I can make sure I get it right.

Speaker 1
14:10 - 14:34
They might have the language, and you might see the messages that are very, they look very innocent, but the emojis are the ones that tell the big story. So there's a red, in the emojis, there's a red pill, which means I see the truth. It's used in toxic male spaces to mean waking up to a supposed hidden truth about women and society. It's very misogynistic.

Speaker 1
14:34 - 14:53
It's linked to misogynism. The blue pill represents those who are blind to the truth. They still believe in mainstream views about relationships and gender dynamics. The dynamite emoji is an exploding red pill, meaning someone is radicalizing that incel, that incel that you're never going to find anybody, you're never going to have anybody.

Speaker 1
14:54 - 15:17
A kidney bean is a symbol that's linked to the same culture, and it's mocking women. The 100 emoji is tied to the 80-20 rule that we were talking about. 80% of women are only attracted to 20% of men. There's a black hole used to express depression, hopelessness, or being sucked into a negative online space.

Speaker 1
15:18 - 15:59
The tornado represents chaos feeling overwhelmed and sometimes used to indicate mental distress And then there's the heart emojis Okay, so the red heart emoji love the purple is lust Yellow means are you interested red means? Are you interested but not in sex? And orange means you'll be okay like an apparent child dynamic So these are just the colors just the colors of the emojis and what they mean And if we are just slightly aware of that and are able to look at our kids instagram messages and put these emojis together It might be very helpful in knowing what our kids are doing.

Speaker 1
15:59 - 16:24
As educators and parents and administrators and peers, we have a duty to listen beyond the behavior. We have to reframe what we define as normal teen behavior and look at the messages underneath. And remember, when our kids are quiet and they're just sitting in their room and they're always doing homework on their computer or their phone, you need to keep checking. That's not the only thing they could be doing.

Speaker 1
16:24 - 16:48
And they always say the squeaky wheel gets the attention, the squeaky wheel makes the noise and gets all the attention. It's the kids who are quiet, they know this. So there's kids who are so quiet and they don't wanna tell parents what's happening. They are isolated in their rooms and we think that they're just being quiet and they're just doing their homework and just being really good kids with their behavior.

Speaker 1
16:49 - 17:08
That's where you need to dive in and start having a look. That's a good sign to have just some kind of awareness. And if you're just looking, And they're getting defensive about you might be looking I think it's time to say, okay Well, then we don't have social media. I'll take the phone.

Speaker 1
17:08 - 17:33
I take the computer, you know all of this Is it worth the fight? Yeah, it's totally worth the fight When you see I know this whole series is not based on one true story It's based on a bunch of stories that the director had put together and it really he really felt like the need to Reveal this kind of message make sure people are aware And so that's what we need to do. We need to be aware.

Speaker 1
17:34 - 17:53
The series isn't just entertainment. It is a wake-up call for awareness, for early intervention, and for empathy. And there's one thing I'm gonna add that Jamie said, because there is a video evidence of what he did. And he said, but video isn't real anymore.

Speaker 1
17:54 - 18:01
Video can be doctored. It's fake news. So, sound familiar? Yeah.

Speaker 1
18:03 - 18:18
All right, that's it for this episode. Again, one more the next week with episode four. We're gonna wrap up the whole series. Listen, and when you watch it, please do yourself a favor and put the closed captioning on.

Speaker 1
18:18 - 18:29
It's UK and their accents are so thick. It was really hard to understand. And so you missed a lot of the nuances. So if you really want to get it, put your headphones in and put the closed captioning on.

Speaker 1
18:30 - 18:43
Thank you for spending time with me. I hope you are just a little more aware of what's happening and I hope this is really helpful. Share, download, subscribe. You know, if somebody loves a kid, then they need to hear this.

Speaker 1
18:44 - 18:54
Thanks for listening. Have a great day. See you next week. Thank you for listening to another episode.

Speaker 1
18:54 - 19:28
I just wanted to share something with you because you know parenting teens is not just about managing these challenges that we talk about on all the episodes. It's also about evolving alongside them. And I'm Cheryl, and not only the host of this podcast, but I'm also the creator of Insight to Impact, coaching and consulting. And I help you moms of teens reconnect with your true selves so you can lead with purpose, you can parent with clarity, you can create stronger, more meaningful relationships with your kids.

Speaker 1
19:29 - 19:38
Because here's the truth. The transformation starts with you. Together, we will break free from the stress and overwhelm. We will rediscover your power.

Speaker 1
19:39 - 19:54
We will create the life and the family dynamic you always dreamed of. If you're ready to start this journey, let's do it. You might just not recognize your life in the next 90 days. It all starts with a call.

Speaker 1
19:54 - 20:03
There's no pitch. There's no pressure, just a call to see if I can help. We'll talk about your goals. We'll talk about what's making you feel stuck and what might be getting in your way.

Speaker 1
20:03 - 20:20
And everything you need to connect with me is in the show notes. Again, I'm Cheryl. Thank you so much for joining me here on Parenting Teens, advice redefined for today's complex world and the creator of Insight to Impact Coaching and Consulting. Have a great day.