When a teenager kills: what 'Adolescence' forces us to watch

Adolescence is a call to society. The Netflix series tackles an issue that is rarely talked about, but is increasingly present: crimes committed by teenagers.

Adolescence is a four-episode British series that premiered on Netflix on March 13. The plot revolves around a 13-year-old boy who faces charges for the murder of his classmate, Katie.

Following the launch of the series, several media outlets and users on social networks questioned the choice of the actor for the role of Jamie, who is white, and claimed that the character was inspired by a real case that occurred in London in 2023, in which a black teenager stabbed a female student to death.

For their part, the creators assured that the series is based on several cases. Without mentioning one in specific, they explain that they made the decision to make the series after learning about the case of a young man who stabbed a girl.

"Here was an incident where a young boy [allegedly] stabbed a girl," said Stephen Graham, one of the creators of the series, in an interview reviewed by Netflix.

"It shocked me. I was thinking, ‘What’s going on? What’s happening in society where a boy stabs a girl to death? What’s the inciting incident here?’ And then it happened again, and it happened again, and it happened again. I really just wanted to shine a light on it, and ask, ‘Why is this happening today? What’s going on? How have we come to this?’'" she said.

For psychiatrist Estefanía García and psychologist Juliana Mejía, founders of AdoleCiecia -a center specializing in adolescents-, the series is a way of communicating a growing issue: mental health in young people.

However, they stressed that one should not lose sight of the fact that it is a fictional story. What they are clear about is that it shows how relationships between parents and children are currently being managed, and the use of digital platforms among adolescents.

In addition, the experts pointed out that, before the denouement of the story, the parents of Jamie Miller - the name of the main character in the series - ignored the signals that the teenager was giving.

"What went wrong is that the parents did not detect the warning signs that Jaime was showing."

“To the extent that we as parents begin to understand what is expected and what deviates from normality in our adolescents, we can begin to see warning signs which was what they failed to detect," said psychiatrist Estefania Garcia.

Despite this, they also consider that it is an issue that socially evidences the presence of multiple factors that could have led to this fatal outcome.

For example, they highlighted that many times parents do not know how to react to the attitude of their adolescent children. "Many times we have no idea how to respond to our teenagers," said Garcia.

That's why they insisted on the need for parents to educate themselves on how to deal with their children. But they also asked not to focus only on the fatal outcome of the series.

"It is to educate ourselves on what is normal and what deviates from normality in the process of an adolescent, which is where many times those of us who are parents of adolescent children get a little entangled, even more so at this time," said the psychiatrist.

Juliana Mejía agreed, and stressed that the series also represents a call to parents about how they are acting. She pointed out that the use of technology is affecting the relationship between young people and their parents.

"Also as parents we have to know what adolescence is and train ourselves a little bit on what is expected and what is not expected in adolescence. Because we cannot pathologize everything and consider that everything is very serious," said Mejía.

In this sense, she emphasized that there are several elements in the production beyond the central story. She mentioned other characters such as the detective's son, the girl who is Katie's friend, Jamie and her friends, who "bring us elements to say that we have to start talking at home about how they are and have difficult conversations."

"We ourselves as adults are also many times immersed in the cell phone, answering messages, responding to things, making calls, glued to Instagram, many things that I as an adult also say: 'Suddenly at home teenagers arrive and many times we are not opening those channels of communication to how it really went,'" Mejía highlighted.

Finally, they pointed out that, as a society, the community that is being built should be reviewed and that it should not remain in the guilt, but move towards the responsibility of achieving safer environments.

"It is a call to everyone. It is very striking to only analyze the school context. The behaviors are not addressed as they can be problematic and how they can be solved. It is an issue that socially they are not saying that there are many elements that led to that fatal outcome," Mejía specified.