Waywardseries available on Netflix, starts from a disturbing and fascinating idea: what happens if to “cure” a teenager you have to cut the link with the family and rewrite its emotional history from scratch? ATTENTION: no spoilers on the plot, but it is useful to know that the series, while maintaining a psychological thriller tone, opens very current and real reflections on what it means to educate, love and grow in a world that promises emotional shortcuts.
It is not just fiction: behind the narrative there is a concrete question that concerns parents, educators and anyone who relationships with childhood and adolescence. What does it really mean taking care of a child? And where does love ends, when does the control begins?
Care or control? The thin line that Wayward exasperal
In the series, parents deliver their children to a “salvific” institution. In real life it happens in Piccolo: school pressures, successful expectations, emotional blackmail masked by good intentions (“I do it for your good”). Psychology distinguishes between boundaries (clear, negotiated, consistent rules) and control (interference on the thoughts and feelings of the child). The boundaries support autonomy; Check the brakes.
Translated: it’s “never say no”; It is to say no clearly and respectfully, explaining why and accepting that the boys feel unpleasant emotions without ridiculous or silent them.
“Is it better to turn off the feelings?”
Wayward It stages the universal desire not to suffer. But suppressing is not regular. Emotional suppression (in parents and children) cools the relationship: less warmth, less tuning, more misunderstandings. Emotional regulation, however, is to recognize what I feel, give it a name, tolerate it, use it to decide.
In family practice: “I am angry” does not equate to “scream and split everything”, but not even “I feel nothing”. It is: “I understand my anger, I say it, I choose what to do with it”.
They are not only the parents: ties also count Between adult
The children do not absorb just as we turn to them, but as we treat ourselves among us. The chronically destructive couple conflict (screams, offenses, stubborn frost) Herod the emotional security of children and adolescents. You don’t need to be perfect: you need to repair – apologize, explain, show how it is remedied for a tear. This is how the boys learn that ties can break and sewn without canceling anyone.
The trauma that travels: what we do not elaborate tends to repeat oneself
Here Wayward It becomes a metaphor: the idea of ”cutting the past” resonates because family weights often pass on. Today we also have biological clues. A study published on Scientific Reports (2025) – Mulligan et al., “Epigenetic Signoutures of Intergenerational Exposure to Violence in Three Generations of Syrian Refugees” – He detected 35 DNA methylation sites associated with direct or” germ “exposure to violence and acceleration signs of the epigenetic age in children exposed in uterus.
In simple words: the body “records” the experiences of violence, and part of these tracks can also emerge in subsequent generations. Attention, it is not a destiny: it is a sign of vulnerability that asks for prevention, support, nutrition, environment, safe contexts. But he tells us a crucial thing: the experiences count, and not only in the qui-and-hour. Moral is not “we are ruined”: it is “we have new reasons to intervene early and better”.
What Not says the series (and that is worth adding)
As just said, Wayward It suggests cutting the ties to heal. In reality, effective work rarely passes from the clear tear. Often it is the opposite: to rename family history, clarify limits and roles, make room for the unspoken, “rewrite” toxic habits without rewriting facts or denying emotions. Growth is not cancellation, it is integration.
Useful ambiguity: Parents executioner or victims of the system?
Tall Pines proclaims parents as “the root of pain”. It is an idea that seduces because it is simple. But the series itself shows that this thesis becomes a device of power: isolation the boys, create dependence on the community, turn off the critical doubt. In real life, responsibility is more distributed: family, school, services, media, social networks.
Nobody is enough; Everyone can do damage if they promise shortcuts. The real alternative is not “cutting parents”, but changing the dynamics: less control, more boundaries; Less secret, more word; Less performances, more relationship.
How it translates into daily choices (without magic berries)
Uncomfortable questions that are worth asking themselves (as parents, as children)
Why Wayward It remains on us (even if it is fiction)
Because it does not offer comfortable guilty. It shows two equally dangerous extremes: love that suffocates and “cure” that manipulates. In the middle we are there, imperfect adults, called to a difficult task: to bear emotions – ours and the boys – without turning them off, and build bonds that hold even when they hurt.
Wayward He does not ask to choose a culprit: he asks us to change practices. Check is not to protect. To shut up is not healing. Cut is not growing. The question that remains is simple and demanding: are we willing to really listen – them and us – without putting the silencer to emotions?
The series does not offer comfortable solutions. Shows how much love can become suffocating and how much “cure” can turn into manipulation. But above all he puts us in front of a challenge: to bear emotions, even the uncomfortable ones, without turning them off.
And it reminds us of an important thing: we are not alone, but nobody can save us in our place.
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