Because the teenage series concerns us. It enters the world (unknown) of today’s guys

Teenagencethe acclaimed series Netflix who tells the story of a teenager (Jamie) accused of killing a school companion, as well as the recent black news events that involve the classic « good guys » involved, pushes each of us (parents, teachers, educating community) to ask us why today’s young people are so fragile. What do we not understand new generations? What are we wrong? Replies to Courier Pietro Roberto Goisis, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.

«In the series, as in real life, adults are a bit distracted, they find themselves astonished and surprised by what they discover about the life of a child, but then they choose not to choose. They remain on the margins of history, without a real assumption of responsibility, avoiding comparisons and conflicts. After all, they behave similarly to teenagers: in the face of a problem, as if it were a trauma, they remain motionless and speechless, they do not fully understand what is happening and they are without the tools to establish effective communication between generations ».

What can adult do?

“It may seem like a paradox but less words are needed and more listening. If we all remained silent, in a « active » silencemade of real and profound listening, perhaps we would understand something more than our kids, instead to fill their head of words. In the series, the phrase that pronounces Jamie’s father, between sobs and larime, in the end: « is emblematic: »I Am Srery, son. I Should’ve Done Better« (I am sorry son, I should have done better). They are desperate words that must be read not so much as an assumption of guilt, but rather of responsibility, to prove the very difficult and very delicate role to educate that Freud He considered among the most difficult trades in the world ».

Why do adults struggle to understand the new generations?

«It is as if they were navigating aimlessly, at the mercy of the waves. They don’t understand the boys, they go on hoping that things work and then amaze themselves if there is something that goes wrong. A radical change is needed. As long as we delude ourselves to understand young people using our parameters, and this applies to parents, psychoanalysts, teachers, educators, we will not go anywhere ».

In addition to listening, what can be done?

«One of the most significant figures of the series is that of son of the policeman. When he sees that the father, who arrived at school to investigate, is in great difficulty, he tries to help him. And he does it by telling him that he has not understood anything about his world, how the teenagers works, and that if he wants to understand it he must first know their language, also the digital one of the « hearts », how words, emojis, colors are used. It does it as « interpreter ». Only in this way, Observing young peopleit is possible to look at them for what they really are ».

Why can’t we « enter » their world?

« The » feeling « the new generations as different from the previous ones is a theme that has always been there. It is true, however, that At this moment a quantum leap is taking place, certainly not a single generation. The accelerations that have taken place in the last thirty years had never been seen, from every point of view, communicative, technological. And we are still in the midst of this transformation. What we can do is try to « wake up » from our torpor To start looking at and listening to young people truly, looking with them a constructive confrontation that also contemplates the « I’m sorry » and the « sorry » when we are wrong ».

Why do we feel in question?

Each episode of « teenascence » was shot in a single sequence plan that allowed to show the scenes as they are. «Thanks also to neutral assembly The series activated very powerful identification processes that lead to thinking that that type of situation could happen to anyone. The question to ask is: what is the degree of separation between our children and Jamie? Between us and his parents? There is no right response and it is the reason why the series suggests that it is better to have an extra precaution, more an attention, than to minimize certain wrong behaviors. The more we show our children, with the example, virtuous behavior, above all, The value of human life – Key concept to be transmitted to the new generations – the more we can be different from the characters told in this story », says Goisis.

How to « check » today’s guys without being intrusive?

« We need to think about adolescence as a second birth, in which the boys are an active part of the process. In this phase of life the boys must have places to make their experiments and adults are responsible for observing them from afar. Calvino in his praise to « lightness » (in American lessons, editor’s note) suggested that « gliding on things from above ». This is how the look of the presence of the parents must also be, which is quite another thing compared to that of the surveillance cameras, or controls through the GPS of smartphones « , underlines Goisis.