8 Popular Shows I Wouldn’t Let My Teen Watch Without Previewing Myself

I began reporting on this story asking therapists specializing in teen family dynamics one very specific question: What shows would you not let your teen watch? As with most things in the teenage wasteland, the answers were not as straightforward as I’d hoped. It gets slippery since we can’t control what our teenagers watch. Sure, you can set limits on devices, but there’s still YouTube and TikTok. And what about when your teen goes over to a friend’s home, where there are different (or fewer) guardrails? Long story short, encouraging a healthy independence and keeping your kid’s brain safe are often at odds.

While I was expecting an ironclad list of shows on a forbidden list, I, a mom of a teenager, came away with a more nuanced and elastic set of guidelines. But fear not, I know what you came for: I have also included a list of shows targeted to adults but depicting teens in crisis—shows you may want to keep your teen from watching.

• Don Grant, (PhD, MA, MFA, SUDCC IV) is a clinical psychologist specializing in families with teens. He holds the title of National Advisor of Healthy Device Management for Newport Healthcare.
• Kirsten Cobabe, aka the “teen whisperer,” has worked as a teen advocate for more than two decades. Her online sessions focus on increased communication between parents and teens.

Here’s a list of shows I’d preview—that means I’d watch one episode of it before my kids sees it—before allowing my child to watch, along with a thumbnail of what gives me, as a parent, pause in terms of hot button topics like sex, violence, drugs and self-harm.

• 13 Reasons Why (suicide, sexual assault, substance abuse)
• Euphoria (drug abuse, explicit sexual content, trauma)
• Teen Torture  (abuse of teens in rehab settings)
• Vampire Diaries (supernatural, bloody)
• The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (bloody)
• Riverdale (sex, violence, alcohol)
• I Know What You Did Last Summer (violence, horror, bullying)
• Pretty Little Liars (alcohol, drugs, self-harm, bullying)

Your Teen’s Personality and Disposition

Unlike, say, preschool-age kids, there is a lot of developmental and cultural difference between, for example, one family’s 13-year-old son, a 17-year-old girl and another family’s 15-year-old nonbinary teen. So while one family might not have a problem with watching Riverdale, for example, another home might. Add to this the fact that, as Grant puts it, “If your kid struggles with anything, say if your kid has ADHD or is on the spectrum or doesn’t have a great peer-bonding, there are shows that might escalate preexisting conditions. So every kid is different. A show that seems innocuous to one, another kid should not watch that show, it’s up to the parent, we should know what our kids watch, pay attention and you will hear them talking about shows and if they’re alarmed.”

Watch the Show Yourself

And, if you hear about a show that’s got teens in it and your parent Spidey sense tells you it might interest your kid but also be too intense, say with depictions of bullying or self-harm, watch an episode privately to check it out. “We parents don’t send our kids to college with out checking our their campus, but, media and music are the two most powerful vectors of influence,” Grant says. “Treat media and what your kids are consuming like anything else you are BUYING your children. So please, remember these are products and investigate what they are.”

What to Say When Your Kid Sees Content You Weren’t Ready for Them to See

When you find out your kid has watched something they’d agreed they wouldn’t, ask them first how that came about. “I’d say, oh, I thought we agreed you wouldn’t watch that, how did that come about?” says Cobabe. “Because your kid may have felt too embarrassed to ask their friend to turn it off when it was on at the sleepover, or they might have wondered what all their classmates were talking about.” Whatever the explanation, allow your child to explain their motivation, and then ask questions. Ask open-ended questions, like “What did you think about that?” or “Was there any character who was interesting?” or “Did it seem realistic?” (That last question is a way to get your kids to compare and contrast the media with what their IRL teen life is like.)

Final Tips and Tricks to Get My Teen Talking About What They Are Watching?

Here’s a trick I love—Grant told me his wife asks their teens for suggestions on what to watch next. “She says she is out of shows, and what should she watch,” he says. “But really she has plenty of stuff in her queue, she just wanted to get them to tell her what they were watching, and what they thought of shows.” This starts a dialogue about media that lets teens drive the conversation, seeming less like an interrogation and more like a conversation between equals, which teens love.