← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Adolescence: The Netflix Doc That’s HAUNTING Every Parent
00:49:07
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- [00:00]
Ashley Banfield
Foreign. Hey everybody. Welcome to Drop Dead Serious. I'm Ashley Banfield, your host in this episode. Have you seen this latest hit on Netflix? It's called Adolescence. Wow. First of all, it's unreal. And in this episode I am going to dive into it because it is gripping, it is brutally honest. It's a four part miniseries. It follows the arrest, isolation and prosecution of a 13 year old boy accused of murdering a girl from his school. But this series doesn't focus on the victim as most series do. This series focuses on the boy, on the perpetrator. It focuses on the fallout, on the family, on the shame, the systems that either failed or just weren't built yet for a child who was capable of killing. After watching Adolescence, I could not stop thinking about it. And if you've seen it, I think you know. Well, if you know, you know, right? The way that they showed the arrest of this kid was so jarring and memorable, I don't think I'll ever shake it. The scenes in the police station with again a 13 year old boy who had just wet his pants because he was being arrested. And then just this incredible devolution of a family. They literally unravel sort of before your eyes. And again, this is the family of the perpetrator. We're not even talking about how awful things are for the victim at this point, just the perpetrator. It is a fascinating look. The filmmaker said they wanted to do something very different. They wanted to look into the other side of crime that doesn't get a lot of attention. The perpetrator, why the perpetrator does what he does, especially at 13, especially a 13 year old who at times can have so much bravado, but then at other times is just a little boy because that's reality. And I've got to be honest with you, when I was watching this series sometimes I thought I was watching a documentary, not like a major cinematic production, but that's what it was. And to that point you will be shocked when you watch this because eventually, if you don't already know it, you will catch on that every single episode is one take, one continuous shot for the whole, you know, almost hour. It is absolutely stupefying how they could do it. And also it's fascinating. It just feels like you are floating throughout all of these scenes and lives and people and different floors of different buildings and inside, outside into cars, out of cars. It's remarkable, just remarkable. So in a nutshell, the story is about this 13 year old boy who is arrested on suspicion of Murdering another girl from his school and the process that he goes through and how little the parents are allowed to be involved and how little the family knows about this and how they just can't understand how something like this could happen. It's a great family. The kid has a great upbringing, good school, none of the things that you would expect, right? If you're going to hear about a kid who's accused of murder and spoiler alert, you'll find out right away anyway, he did it. That's what's so shocking. This kid was capable of the ultimate crime, murder. But it's everything that happens afterwards and then it's also the why and the how and how we in society all kind of fit into this now. And what we should know about adolescence, what people don't know about adolescence and their own children, even when everything looks fine. This series really left me with so many questions about how this can actually play out in real life, especially when the suspect is just a little guy. Right? 13. So I picked up the phone and I called somebody I knew was have great insight into this entire topic and it's Dr. John Duffy. He is a clinical psychologist with 30 years experience working with teenagers and tweens and parents and couples and families. He's written three best selling books on parenting, the Available Parent, Parenting the New Teen in the Age of Anxiety, and his latest called rescuing our sons. Dr. John Duffy and I talked about childhood versus the criminal justice system and the fallout and everywhere afterwards what justice looks like when the perpetrator is still sleeping in spaceship bed sheets with a teddy bear close by. And if you haven't yet seen the series, do yourself a favor, you've got to check it out. John, you're the first person I wanted to talk to and honest to God, as I was watching adolescence all the way through, I kept thinking about you and what you would say. So just your overall reaction to that incredible docu series.
- [05:03]
Dr. John Duffy
You know, honestly, Ashley, I was, it was so jaw dropping to me. I didn't know what it was at first. People were telling me, you got to watch this thing. I'm like, oh my gosh, I've got to spend four hours watching this thing about adolescence. I talk to teenagers all day long and it was gripping from the beginning. And my takeaway, my biggest takeaway honestly from it was it felt like I could talk to an audience of parents for a week straight and not cover what what is covered in this four hour documentary about the lives of young teenagers and what they're experiencing, suffering, going through and what could potentially be lethal. I mean, it literally feels real from beginning to end.
- [05:47]
Ashley Banfield
Speaking of that, at times, I. I'm a pretty good TV watcher. I work in the business. I think I'm discerning. But I started to lapse into feeling like I was watching a documentary.
- [05:59]
Dr. John Duffy
Same. Same completely. At first I thought that's what it was going to be, and then I was kind of lulled into thinking, oh, this is one of the. My wife and I love, like, British police procedurals. And I thought, oh, this is going to be a little whodunit thing. We're. We're gonna be really good at this. And. And unfortunately, she's better at me at guessing these things. So, like, you're gonna know who did it right away. You're gonna know if this kid didn't do it. The thing. Right. I didn't know that this was this deep dive into what teenagers are about. So somehow I thought it was so clever of Stephen Graham, who plays the father and developed this whole thing, that he would so cleverly devise a plot that would be gripping enough that we would all want to hang in there to see, like, what's this really about? What drives these kids to do what they do? But, man, did he nailed that. I mean, it really feels like, oh, yeah, you do get a feel for what motivates all these kids to behave the way they do, including the kid who ultimately did the awful thing, and the parents.
- [07:05]
Ashley Banfield
I mean, I was right there with them. When you and I could have a conversation about the unbelievable acting, we could have a conversation about the spectacular directing, which I'm not an expert in, but I know it when I see it. And this was. Every episode was shot in one take for the entire episode. And believe me, if you haven't seen this yet, folks, there are scene changes, there are drives, there are drones, and it's all one camera continuously. I don't know how they pulled it off, but that's. I think it's a whole other podcast, because what I really wanted to talk to you about was the focus. They decided in this docu series to focus on something we don't typically do. Focus on the perpetrator, the young perpetrator and the ripple effect and the fallout through his trajectory and through his environs and his family. We often, rightfully so, talk about victims and what happens with their families, friends, loved ones, communities, but we very rarely talk about the perps. And this. I mean, this did it. This really did it. Did they do the right thing? Like, from your Expertise. Was this what you see in your world?
- [08:17]
Dr. John Duffy
O. I'm so glad you asked that, because there have been things not quite like this, but there have been shows that have been. Have attempted to give us a glimpse into this world. Right. Euphoria, I think, did a decent job a few years ago of getting. Giving us a look. I don't know if you remember 13 Reasons why.
- [08:35]
Ashley Banfield
Sure do. I loved it.
- [08:36]
Dr. John Duffy
Yes. But. But, you know, working with kids who have been suicidal or had suicidal ideation, typically they don't have those 13 reasons. Right. So that. That felt like I loved it. I thought there were moments that were really spot on and moments where I was like, I've never worked with a kid who spoke quite like this. This thing where the way that boy spoke, especially in his discussion with a psychologist, doing what I do, felt so very real that I felt like I felt her anxiety. I felt like, oh, my God, I wonder. I don't know what I would do next. I don't know what I would say next to this kid. I don't know how I would de. Escalate this kid in this situation. That's kind of how real it all felt to me. And I agree with you. Like, it felt real from the parents point of view, from the other kid's point of view. But that, that boy in particular, that child, I felt like, wow, first of all, he nailed like this the way that a kid would present. And it's not linear, it's so nuanced. There's so many elements to his presentation. Right. Because in some shots, you're right, it's one continuous shot. So I'll take that back. But in some moments, he seems like a little boy, which in some ways he is. Right, Right. And in some moments, he seems like he is trying so hard to be 8ft tall, like a big man towering over a woman, you know, and, um, all of that rings true. Like, you know, in. In a given hour with a kid, you can go through all of that emotional turmoil and not necessarily land in the best place, like, really walking out of the room. They didn't necessarily land in this place where they're like, we have this great connection. You know, he's torn out of that room. You know, it's so. Yeah. I mean, did it. Did it ring true? Painfully so.
- [10:28]
Ashley Banfield
That's amazing because I, you know, I looked at it. I have two boys. One is turning 18, the other one's 19 and a half. And I look at their you upbringing and sure, they had their tantrums and we went through all sorts of stuff. But I didn't know how serious it could get inside that little mind of a 13 year old. Like how much banging around is going on. And for this character. P.S. this actor should win everything. This child should win every award and they should make new ones for him for what he did. And the father as well.
- [11:00]
Dr. John Duffy
Yes.
- [11:01]
Ashley Banfield
But I, I was really sort of eye opened as to how quickly these teenagers can bounce between these personalities and these aggressions and these sort of. I don't know how to describe it but. But they collapse into themselves as babies right next to a moment when they want to threaten your life.
- [11:21]
Dr. John Duffy
Yes. And all of that feels like the world of a teenager. And I'm going to be specific here. A teenage boy right now in particular. They're, they're so lost and so desperate to find some sense of identity that they try on different hats in real time. Like literally the way that third episode plays out is the way a therapy session with a 13 year old boy plays out. Or a 12 or an 11 year old boy. Ashley. Like you know, like yes, yeah, they, that this is. And I've been doing this 30 years, 10, 15 years ago, that wasn't the case. Like I think they're dealing with such a whole wild new world that they just cannot find a single way to present and identify themselves because they're not sure. Like am I toxic? Am I supposed to be like alpha male number one guy? Am I supposed to be a kid? You know, am I allowed to be a kid? Am I allowed to yawn? At one point he yawns in there and you could see like he's sheepish about it. Like, you know, like is it my showing weakness of some kind? You know, and boys are that lost right now in the world like you know, up to and including like the late teen years. Even some guys I work with who are your son's age, I have a son who's in his 20s. Guys who are his age are lost. But it starts right around this boy's age. Sometimes a little younger, like sometimes he seems a little younger than 13. Me, I think he was 14 maybe when he filled it, filmed this. But he, sometimes he seems like a 10 or 11 year old and I work with some kids that age and he reminds me of them as well.
- [13:00]
Ashley Banfield
So it's, you know, I'm trying to sort of put my hat on from 20 years ago. And in this particular docu series the, the thirteen year old boy who has committed this murder. I guess what we're getting to is that he did it because he felt sexually bullied by another girl through social media, through the use of emojis and, you know, the typical kinds of conversations that go on back and forth between these kids these days. I thought it was very egregious and almost hyperbolic, but I wanted to sort of get a gut check from you as to how does, like, how badly does something that seems innocuous to us grownups, right? Okay, so somebody sent you a hey, you're an incel. Bugger off, you know, and then a couple of emojis that are unpleasant. How serious is that for some kids who don't have other troubles in their lives? This kid had a great life in this docu series. His family was amazing, supportive, helpful, wonderful, thoughtful, loving. How. How can that. That small series of, of social media communications turn into something so catastrophic?
- [14:10]
Dr. John Duffy
It is, it is striking how easily a kid's world can be rocked by a couple of emojis on the back end of Snapchat. You know what I mean? Like, it. It. So that I get where it felt hyperbolic. I've been working for two weeks with parents who've been sitting on the couch behind me asking, like, this was a little much, right? Like, they could, like, he wouldn't go that far. This kind of thing wouldn't possibly happen. But the truth of the matter is it would. It would. And I think sometimes it does. And I work with. I work with boys who are in that incel space where they feel like, this anger and loathing toward girls and women for not wanting them, for not being attracted them, for calling them out, for being unattractive or unwanted. And because they don't yet have this like, like rock solid sense of self, I think they are super susceptible in real time to, like, being broken. And you're right. Here's a kid with the foundation you need to have a really happy, productive life. I mean, and I love that the filmmakers were careful to make sure, like, like he called his dad in to be in the interrogation room with him. Right. You know, which is like, wild to me, right? You know, that, like, he's close enough to his dad. Usually it'd be like, mom, mom, like, be maternal with me, hold me, make me really feel like this is going to be okay. But this guy calls his dad and so, you know, like, there's kind of like the support across the board and they've got this great family. You can feel it from the first scene where he's taken away. And. And yet still I see kids, by and large, who Come from really good, loving, caring families who pay attention to parenting. Like, who read books about parenting and go to talks about.
- [16:05]
Ashley Banfield
They're working hard at it.
- [16:06]
Dr. John Duffy
Yes. And still, like, they are depressed and they are anxious and they are angry. Like a lot of these kids, there's a lot of self loathing that they feel. And when they get called out on Snapchat in particular, and other people can see those emojis, they feel like naked to the world. And they are broken very easily and very quickly. And I think we're looking at a generation of boys in particular who are susceptible to that. And I see them, I see them every day. I see a couple of boys who are broken.
- [16:41]
Ashley Banfield
Yeah. You know, Prof. G has this amazing podcast. He talks a lot about boys in the basement. Then they've been growing up in the basement with video games and social media, and they're just not equipped for this world. Why aren't girls, like, why more. Why so much with boys, not so much with girls.
- [16:57]
Dr. John Duffy
So I love Scott Galloway and he's brilliant in the way he talks about this and especially the way he talks about boys. What girls have, I'm finding, especially post Pandemic Ashley, is they never lost their connections, so they, they were able to talk to their friends and they made sure that they were FaceTiming with their friends all the way through the whole thing. Zoom calls were. Were constant. They were sneaking out and hanging out with their friends a lot of the time. Boys became super, super insular and gravitated to the basement, to the couch. They're horizontal in a bed, on the couch, on the floor.
- [17:38]
Ashley Banfield
And they don't face. My kids, do not FaceTime. Even when I ask my sons, could you please call your pal and check? Because we don't have a lot of time to wait for him to find a text. They won't.
- [17:49]
Dr. John Duffy
Right? Right. 100%. And even boys who are. I have a professional relationship. I got a text yesterday, day before, and it was sup meeting today. And as far as he's concerned, like, that's his end of the conversation. You know, I'm supposed to say yep at one, you know, or whatever. So. Yeah. And. And yet the girls never stopped connecting, communicating, talking. And so they felt. Not that they're not going through like, the depression, anxiety, and, and the social insecurity that boys are. They are. But they've got like this foundation that they're standing on that our boys let dissolve away. And now and they've got all these other things at their disposal. They've got video Games that they can play all day long. They've got podcasts that are specifically made for them. Right. And they're hours and hours long. They're super entertaining, you know, and. And all the things that boys are into and, like. And they can also be indoctrinated into ways of thinking, because they are. This is all they're taking in. Right. And a lot of times, parents, at the end of the show, at one point, mom and dad are kind of going through, like, did we screw this up somehow? You know, like, we don't exactly.
- [19:09]
Ashley Banfield
What we all think, by the way, every time we get a note home from school, every time there's a fight with a friend or something, you think, is this my fault? Did I not do something right here?
- [19:19]
Dr. John Duffy
Of course. Yeah. And that. That conversation, so painful because they're really sorting it through in a really honest way, in a way that I've seen couples sort through this stuff on my couch over and over again. Like, you know, like, what did we do wrong? Why is he not thriving? You know, And a lot of it is like, we don't know what's going on behind the closed bedroom door or down in the basement. We don't know what's going on between the AirPods. Like, we don't know what he's listening to. And we should probably pay attention to that. Maybe we screwed that up, and maybe that got him into this position. Right. Somehow. And sometimes I think there's truth to it.
- [19:56]
Ashley Banfield
Well, and that's devastating because, you know, in this docu series, they. These parents have a great kid in their daughter who seems mature beyond her years and part of the clan. You know, she's on the same wavelengths as the parents, and they question, why could we have made her, but at the same time made him? And how did this. How did this happen? I guess for those who are watching this series and wondering, oh, God, I don't want this to happen to us, what do you tell them? I mean, what is the. I mean, this is a pretty big question, but what small steps and then larger steps can people just start taking to make sure they don't end up in a boat like this?
- [20:35]
Dr. John Duffy
Yeah. These days, this is probably always true, but more so now than ever, you've got to really stay in contact with your kid. And. And anybody listening is probably thinking, of course I talk to my kid every day. Like, I asked him how school's going. I. You know, like. But I mean, like, in contact with them. Like, hey, what are we listening to? Give me one of the airpods Let me, let me listen as well. I want to, let me weigh in, you know, like, let's talk about it, kind of get into their world, because I think we're really looking at the first generation of parents that don't know what it's like to be 13 like today. You know what I mean? Like, what it's like a generation ago, but that was easier. Like, as the parents are talking at the end, they're like, you know, our parents kind of knew where we were, what we were up to, what we were doing, what we were thinking, you know, because we weren't thinking that much. Now, kids do a lot of thinking and a lot of reading and they take in a lot of information online and on podcasts and through discord and video chat and all sorts of things that we didn't have access to, you.
- [21:38]
Ashley Banfield
Know, John, it's so funny you say that because I have often laughed. You know, my husband and I will say things to the kids like, well, look, we were teenagers too, you know, you can't put one over on us. We know what is going on. And they'll always have the retort like, oh, my God, that was the 70s. P.S. they were wrong. It was the 60s, but it was the 60s and the 70s. But like, oh my God, that was the 70s. You have no idea. And that was the same thing I said to my mother. I said the same thing, mom, you have no idea. You were wearing bobby socks. Like, come on, it's all different now. But I feel like the changes from my parents looking at me as an adolescent versus me looking at my children as adolescents, those changes are exponential. They're not. They didn't just shift, they obliterated.
- [22:25]
Dr. John Duffy
The whole nature of our world has shifted in a generation. And every generation can say that, right? You know, and then there's truth to it. But in the past 20 years, and it's probably tighter than that, ashley, it's probably 10. Adolescence, which used to be 13 to 19, was probably a reasonable time frame when we were all growing up for to say, like, yeah, that's when we're coming up with our own identity. We're separating from our parents in some way. Now 8, 9, 10 year olds have access to pornography, they have access to Snapchat, all these things, right? That. And so the talks that our parents had to have with us when we were 12, 13, 14, 15, we have to have with our kids when they're way younger than that. So adolescence really doesn't start with the teen years. It starts well before that. You know, and so, and by the.
- [23:19]
Ashley Banfield
Way, anyone who's listening with little kids, don't just think because you have governors on your devices that your seven year old, your eight year old isn't going to see, you know, pornhub because they will be exposed to other kids. They will be at a sleepover, they will be at school in the schoolyard. This stuff happens. It happened to my kids. They were exposed through another child when they were that young to something that awful. And then, you know, the fallout was we, we had to clean up the mess 100%.
- [23:49]
Dr. John Duffy
And, and kids are precocious, right? So we can't really blame them, right? They stumble upon pornhub, right? An older brother shows them, you know what this is when they're 8 or 9 years old. But not long ago, I had a kid who was 13, the same age as the boy in the show, sitting on my couch. And he was walking me through what pornography is like now. And he said, here's what happens about eight or nine. You stumble upon it one way or another. My older brother showed me pornhub and he said, that's Disney porn. That's where you start. And then by the time you're my age, and he's kind of talking like the grizzled old age of 13 years old, oh dear. You're looking at, you're in the recesses of the dark web and you're seeing some really awful pornography that you know, is traumatizing and gets boys kind of afraid of connecting with girls, afraid of sex or sexuality in any way. They're terrified of the whole thing. And you've probably read studies in the not too distant past that said, like, kids are not connecting in a romantic way the way they used to. And part of that is that boys are looking at pornography and they're like, I can't. I can't be that guy, you know, like, I can't. I'm not going to be able to perform like this or act like this. So I'll just keep watching it, you know.
- [25:04]
Ashley Banfield
That needs to be the next docu series, by the way. Somebody needs to do a big docu series on the kinds of pornography that are available to these kids because they do stumble on it. They do see it in places they shouldn't. They're over at a friend's house and the friend has an older stepbrother or whatever, and what it does to them and how it affects them and where their minds are when it comes to, like you said, the connections and sexuality. Because I think this is our next big crisis that we're not talking about.
- [25:28]
Dr. John Duffy
Yeah, yeah. And I think it's actually woven into the, the adolescent story too. Right. I mean, part of it was that this girl was trolling this boy online. Part of it was, I think he was interested in her too. Right. You know, and, and he thought she was attractive and, and so, you know, to be rejected in that way, you know, to be doubled down on, you know, he felt like, you know, really.
- [25:52]
Ashley Banfield
He asked her to go to the fair. Was it? Wasn't that it? I asked her.
- [25:56]
Dr. John Duffy
So sweet and inaccurate and old school. Right? Yeah, the fair.
- [26:03]
Ashley Banfield
Oh, I just get a pit in my stomach when I think of it. Can I like just sort of zip back to the beginning of the series? Because I think one of the most powerful and memorable moments from this docu series was the arrest. Because they arrested the 13 year old boy just like they would arrest any other suspected murderer. They bust down the door at six in the morning and they grabbed him out of his bed, which means opening the door to a little boy's room with spaceship wallpaper and spaceship sheets and the teddy bear in bed. And there he is in his jammies because he's still 13. And there's the sister opening the bathroom door as a teenage girl would and freaking out on her knees. And then the parents thinking there's some horrifying mistake going on. And boy, will you guys pay a price for this. But he wet his, he wet his pants, you know, and you know, at 13, you wouldn't typically do that, but even at 30, you might if you were encountering that kind of thing. But just get me inside the head of a, of a kid at 13 being awakened that way with the reality now that we know he, we know what he did last night.
- [27:12]
Dr. John Duffy
Yeah. We have to remember, like, despite what they're exposed to and you know, maybe the language that they use sometimes, they're still 13. Like, we have to remember what 13 looks and feel feels like. Right. You know, because there's bravado that boys put on. There's like certain ways that girls present, like sexually in other ways. You know, everyone has to present a little more mature. They have to, they have to create a Persona online. But these are children. Like, you know, I think this boy was kind of brilliantly cast because at times he looks like such a baby, right?
- [27:46]
Ashley Banfield
Oh, I know. I thought he looked nine. I mean, and he's so cute. And it broke my heart when he said he thought he was ugly. I just thought, who told you these Awful lies.
- [27:56]
Dr. John Duffy
And, you know, and. And he's. Even though, you know, hours before he had done something terrible, he's still a child, and he's in his room. And there are moments where he said, like, I didn't do anything, Dad. I didn't do anything. Where I think he means it. I think he really believes, like, you know, well, I couldn't possibly have done anything that awful. You know, I'm not a bad person. I'm a nice kid. You know, like, you know me, dad. You know, like, you know what?
- [28:20]
Ashley Banfield
Pull on that thread. Pull on that thread, John. Because throughout the series, the family, the dad in particular was devastated, stated that the boy just looked right in his eyes and lied at him. But I did wonder if in real life, more kids don't believe or don't or have blocked out stuff that they've done that either they know is terrible or are ashamed of, or when they get into a different environment, it's as though the other environment didn't exist.
- [28:46]
Dr. John Duffy
It's. It's something that I've wondered whether viewers who don't have a background in psychology think about is, like, that he might be absolutely telling the truth when he says, I didn't do this. I would never do anything to hurt anybody and actually mean it. He could pass a polygraph test. You know, like, I've worked with people who have done really terrible things and have no, like, distinct memory of it, or they've fully blocked it out. It's kind of like, oddly enough, it's traumatic to be a victim in almost any. Any type of crime, any type of violent crime in particular, oddly enough, Ashley, I did some training at a juvenile detention center. It's also traumatic to be a perpetrator. And almost every young perpetrator, something has happened to them. You know, like, they've been through something as well that was traumatic. So they have this operation in their mind where they are able to block off certain things, compartmentalize certain memories, and park them in places in their mind so that they can move forward with their lives, you know, and as far as this kid knew, I would imagine he thought, I'm going to sleep through the night, get up, go to school. And nothing happened yesterday, you know, like. And part of his young mind fully believed that, you know, was in utter shock, that, like, the police are here, a girl died. What are you talking about? You know, you got to be kidding me. And believes that kind of also knowing full well in another part of his brain, yeah, I did that.
- [30:17]
Ashley Banfield
It's like a dream Sequence. But, you know, we know that adults do that. I'm Talking to you, O.J. but, but, you know, we know adults truly can believe that they didn't do the awful thing. Is it more prevalent among kids? Like, is this more of a story you'd see with kids where they can just honestly believe that nothing happened?
- [30:36]
Dr. John Duffy
Way more prevalent. There are. I work with adults, young adults in particular, who will remember that they committed some sexual abuse against a sibling is probably the most common thing I hear, or that they were violent toward classmates or something like that. But they, they in real time have no memory of it. They'll come up with it right here in the therapy room. They'll be like, my God, I think I did this awful thing one time years ago. I worked with this young man who remembered that when he was five or six years old, he killed the family cat. And he did not in the entire space of time between that. He had blocked that memory from the moment it happened. He said, my, My parents came and got me. We went to the mall or something, and we came home, the cat was dead. I, I had done it. But I went with their narrative and believed their narrative that, like, oh, something awful happened the cat, and somehow he or she found his way into the hamper and, and, and suffocated. And, you know, and I had nothing to do with that. What a terrible accident. And not until he was in months of therapy did he realize, oh, this is why I hate myself. This is why I feel this way, because I did this awful thing. I must be a bad person.
- [31:59]
Ashley Banfield
So the other aspect to this kid was that while he seemed cute and adorable and 13 and, you know, young, but he did have those moments of bravado, he also had moments of actual, like, severe aggression right at the moment where he menaced the psychologist, at the moment when he just got so angry he'd blow and he'd bang the hot chocolate off the, off the table. And then, I suspect the same kind of social pattern for him was playing out when he was angry with the girl. And on surveillance tape, we see her pushing him and then him pushing her down and then reaching into his pocket and just stabbing her repeatedly. And I wondered about children in general. When you see kids who have a propensity to pop off, can't maintain their emotions. They've got. They seem pretty sober most of the time, but then have these huge spikes. What kind of kid do you really have to worry about will take a spike into the level that this boy did.
- [32:58]
Dr. John Duffy
In the docu series, it's a great question. So, like one of the biggest things we have to learn as kids is emotional self regulation. Right. This is, you know, it's something I am pushing like school districts to teach. Like, you know, like teach emotional intelligence, teach kids to regulate their emotions. That's a more important life skill than trigonometry, you know, And I stand by that.
- [33:23]
Ashley Banfield
Yeah.
- [33:24]
Dr. John Duffy
And it's the kids I worry about are the kids who are impulsive, who cannot squeeze a thought in between anger and action. And they just like one leads immediately to the other. And if I can get them to take, and I'm not kidding actually a second or two and just breathe and consider like, okay, I'm not going to do anything right now. I'm just going to think about it. Almost always they back way off the, the impulsive, violent thing they're going to do or say. But there is a group of kids, and it's not just boys, this can be girls as well, who lack that skill, lack that ability. And those are the kids I worry about, is those kids who like act immediately out of impulse. And it's something. Good news is it's something that can be trained.
- [34:16]
Ashley Banfield
That's what I was going to ask you. Oh my God. Every parent out there right now is like, oh, no, I have the most impulsive children. But it is something that you can get them to count five, four or three. There are all these little exercises and by the way, pragmatic exercises. Whenever an expert talks in big language, when you're in a counseling session, you think, okay, all that makes sense. But in the moment when shit's going sideways, I need a practical solution that I can employ by rote. And there are those for kids who are impulsive, aren't there?
- [34:49]
Dr. John Duffy
100%. And I will cop to. My field, I think gets bogged down in our own language, more so than almost any other, when oftentimes the solution is super pragmatic. It is just like, can you just take a breath for me and count down from five?
- [35:05]
Ashley Banfield
Well, listen, hey, I'm not doing denigrating because I think a lot of the language is super important. Because what people like you do is you explain to people like me why is this happening, and then you start to feel better that it makes sense. There is a definition. This isn't, you know, a problem only I'm experiencing. This is a real problem that other people have and there are real solutions and that's very calming. But then that extra step of okay, and here is exactly what you do at exactly this moment. That's the stuff that sometimes I think gets lost and that.
- [35:35]
Dr. John Duffy
Right, agreed. And that's, and that's really, really important stuff. Right? These little skills that we can learn that can alter the direction of our lives, I mean literally alter the direction of our lives. Because people who, there's like research around like impulsivity and people who can take that moment, like are more successful, make more money, have better, longer lasting relationships, more satisfying relationships, like there's all sorts of good things that can come out of that. And if you think about somebody who's in a relationship and acts out of impulse, that's not going to work out, not in the long run, you know, like, unless that person is victimizing their partner consistently. So this is a lifelong skill that we need to learn like really early in the game. And it's not that hard to teach and it's not that hard to learn. It's just that some kids, they're, they're born with an inclination to act quickly and sometimes that's just like a lot of good energy that isn't directed properly. Right. And if you just shift the lens a few degrees, you know, not, not 180 degrees, you know, like some, some people bring their child in and say, we need to change everything. We need to start over with this kid.
- [36:48]
Ashley Banfield
Good luck with that.
- [36:50]
Dr. John Duffy
It's just this little thing we need to change, right? Just this little breath we need to take.
- [36:54]
Ashley Banfield
And I think there's your next docu series too. How impulsivity can ruin your life or enhance it if you treat it the right way. But let me go to a scene that stuck with me. I actually had to watch it twice. I'll admit sometimes I don't catch everything. I'm sort of one of those people who asks a lot of questions in movies and drive everybody crazy. I rewound the scene where the psychologist was Talking to the 13 year old perpetrator and seemed like she was getting a confession out of him. And I thought, did I just miss it? Did he, did he actually confess to her? Because I feel like he didn't. But something just happened. And what I heard on the rewind was the little boy said, look, I had a knife and she was scared and I could have touched her. I mean, everyone else would have. I mean all the other boys would have. And I had the knife and she was scared, but I didn't. So that makes me better. Right. And at that point I was desperately trying to figure out, did this little boy think that the murder wasn't so bad? But the fact that he didn't molest her or rape her made him a good person. Like, I want to get your pure professional assessment of what happened in that scene.
- [38:14]
Dr. John Duffy
I, I'm going to admit to you actually that I also, I think I watched that scene three times. That, that moment, I was taken with that same moment because I wasn't sure either. Like, you know, did he, did he just confess to the murder? But his point, his point was it could have been worse. What I, what I did could have been worse. And other boys, I know, they would have touched her, they would have molested her, they would have raped her. And I didn't do that. I just stabbed her.
- [38:40]
Ashley Banfield
You know, I'm just a killer. I'm not a molester. That's almost what it sounded like.
- [38:44]
Dr. John Duffy
In summary, I think that, and honestly, I think that's the gradation he's making, like, and he's giving himself credit for that. And I think he's being, I think that character is being sincere and I think that's how a child's mind often works, is like, you know, well, I might have done the awful thing, but I, it could have been way worse. I know what other kids would have done for sure. Sure. They talk about it all the time, right? This is where, this is where I think sometimes, like locker room talk for kids can go so sideways because boys will talk about like, you know, if you look at like what they send to each other just on Snapchat, they say the awful, awful things that my generation said out loud. Right. You know, but there was nobody recording it in any way. Now kids can look at it and study it and review it and recognize like, oh, I'm not as bad as some of these kids. Like these, some of these kids are really, really awful. I didn't do a terrible thing. She, she aggravated me, so I just responded, that's all.
- [39:41]
Ashley Banfield
The other issue, and it's right next to that scene, was how as soon as that information was imparted on the psychologist, the psychologist shut down. Like, she got everything she needed and she was ready to move on and informed Jamie, the 13 year old character. I'm done. This is our last meeting. I have other work I have to do and we're finished. And his reaction was, but wait, I thought we were friends. I thought this was gonna happen all the time. I get that a kid doesn't get it that the psychologist was here for a job. But he went on to say, but wait a minute, you do like me, don't you? And his aggression and explosion seem to be all about that. Meaning I'm not gonna find out if you even like me, right?
- [40:32]
Dr. John Duffy
No, that's. You think about that also, honestly rang really, really true to me. I've had moments not dissimilar to that. And I'll. A lot of my female colleagues, one in particular who I talked to about this show, she says she gets that all the time, especially from teenage boys. But I've gotten that from teenage boys, teenage girls, when we were done with therapy, it's like, you know, well, what do you. What do you feel about me? Like, you know, so they want some idea of what adults, what people around them think of them. And it's like, here Jamie has. He's one on one with this person, right? And they. He shared more probably with her than he shared with anybody else in his life. And you're just going to leave. I don't get any feedback. And you see this very human, childlike side of him, but it's also universal, this idea, like, I'm a good kid, right? You. You like me as a person, right? You know, like, we all want that, I think, fundamentally. And if we're denied that, you can see as Jamie's getting pulled away, he's panic stricken, right? He's not. He's lashing out, but he's also panic stricken. Like, I'm never gonna know. I'm never gonna know. And I might be heading into a world where I'm never gonna know if anybody likes me.
- [41:48]
Ashley Banfield
Which also surprised me. I mean, hats off to the filmmakers for not making it cliche. It was really tricky to understand it, but at the same time, I was frustrated because this. This character had parents who loved him. It was clear he had so much love in that household, right? He had a few mates that he used to hang out with and have fun with. Sure. There were the kids at school who didn't like him and the girls who, you know, suggested that he was nowhere in their league. That's every kid. So that's what upset me about this, John. I mean, jeez, we're literally looking at Jamie as every kid out there, and he's a murderer. So get me off the ledge on this.
- [42:29]
Dr. John Duffy
Okay? You're right. It is every kid, right? Every kid has some degree of nuance in their life. It doesn't go beautifully smoothly for any adolescent, nor should it, Right? I mean, like, that's part of establishing, like, your resilience in the world is like, you know, okay, I got some people I can rely on that I'M close to, some people don't like me. I'm gonna have to find my way, navigate my way through that somehow through these years, you know, and that's how we grow up. That's how we become adults. But the kids who I most worry about in that circumstance are the kids who don't have Jamie's either familial support or social support or the impulsivity thing we were talking about earlier as parents to talk you off the ledge a little bit. What we can do to bolster that is what these parents really didn't get an opportunity to do is to sit down with your child on a fairly regular basis and let them unravel their world. Like, if it were up to me, Ashley, I swear to you, I would have every kid Jamie's age in therapy just so they could talk through everything that they're going through. That's how dynamic I think the emotional life of a kid is these days. Even kids who are growing up incredibly privileged with not just all the good things, but all the good people around them, but still, like, there could be a corner of their brain, and if that corner is marked with, like, I think people might hate me. I think I'm not good enough somehow for some people. And, and I may lash out at them. You know, I. I think good work around that. Like, you know, really hanging out with them, listening to them, spending an undue amount of time talking about their emotional life and placing parents into kind of de facto therapist positions, which is an uncomfortable place to be. It's a hard place to be, but I think it's where we have to be now because our kids are absorbing all the things and it hits them hard. They're arguably this generation is more sensitive emotionally than generations preceding them. And at earlier ages than we might have been, we might have not been self conscious at 11, 12, or 13 in the way that Jamie is. And every kid is at their by. By 13 years old. They're, they're body conscious. They're wondering what everybody thinks of them. They're. They're just tortured by their thoughts about themselves.
- [45:01]
Ashley Banfield
So one last question, and that is about the policing of all of this, right? How this boy was pulled out of the bed like an adult would be. He was put in a cell like an adult would be alone. His family was in a waiting room, had no idea. They did not have the right to know. They were just the same as you and me, the public. And I wondered, I don't know that that could have happened in America. I don't think a child would have been taken away from his parent and put into a police van. I think that parent would have had to be there all the way along. And I wonder how you feel about that. The critical nature of having the parent part of the process all the way through the booking, et cetera. And also the fact that we're doing less and less of that. We're charging more and more 15 year olds, certainly sometimes 14 year olds and even 13 year olds as adults.
- [45:56]
Dr. John Duffy
Yeah. And you know that way better than I do, Ashley, because I think you have to report on this all the time. But yeah, I mean, I think we have to remember and I, I think you're right that this wouldn't happen here in America. I'm kind of grateful that they made this there so you could see how brutal it was for this kid to be torn away literally from his family as he's waking up, as he has just wet his pants, as he's terrified. So I think we still need to recognize that children are children, even through this process, right through, you know, he's being accused of the very worst crime. So do you have to go get him? You've got to go get him. But do I wish that there were a parent along in that paddy wagon with him going to the police station? You know? Yes. I think any kid needs that. Right. You know, if there's ever any chance for rehabilitation that's so traumatic a moment and there's several of them. Right. That, that take place. And I think the, the more we can limit the trauma and it's so hard to be empathetic with the, the person who committed the crime. Right. You know, but I think we want to be a society that creates good people and that there's second chances for most of us, even if we've done something awful. And in order for those second chances to be viable, I think we've got to limit the trauma even in that first, even if that first chance is ruined. You know what I mean? So, especially for children, I, I, because like that character, I don't know how he recovers from just that day, from that morning, from the one hour that we witness of that morning.
- [47:39]
Ashley Banfield
Yeah, I'll, I'll say it again. I was shook by the series and by the reality of the, like the, the realness of the series and how I just had my perspective really shifted because no one's ever told a story like this from a perpetrator's point of view, mostly because they feel it's undeserving I am so glad that you talked me through this because I've been, you know, I've been up at night, I haven't thinking through all these scenarios and trying to figure it all out. Especially that psychologist conversation. Dr. John Duffy, thank you so much for this, Ashley.
- [48:16]
Dr. John Duffy
Thank you. Always great to talk to you.
- [48:19]
Ashley Banfield
My Great thanks to Dr. John Duffy. I love my conversations with him and I guarantee that's not going to be the last. It'll be just the first of many more. Thank you so much everyone for being a part of this. Thanks for listening. If you haven't already pleased, please make sure to follow Drop Dead Serious wherever you get your podcasts. And please do this, leave me a rating or a review. Even if you think I stink, I want to hear what you think. If you're watching on YouTube, don't forget to subscribe so that you don't miss any episodes. And if this episode stuck with you in any way, please share it. Please tell a friend. Start a conversation in the comments. We really love to hear from you. I will be back next week with a whole lot more. I'm Ashley Banfield and remember, the truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead seriously.