Parent reviews for 13 Reasons Why

1) I am a licensed therapist and I work with families. This show is NOT worth it to "talk to your kids" and "expose" them to the "realities" of life. You don't have to "expose" kids to have conversations about suicide or rape. Focus on having a good relationship with your kids and you can simply talk about hard things, draw from real stories of suicide and rape survivors from excellent national and local organizations like Samaritans or RAIIN. There are so many other ways, videos, stories, podcasts, books, to have these conversations. This show is disturbing even for adults. 2) The best way to support your kids through hard things is to actually have a relationship with your child. This show will NOT bring you closer to your child. It will not help them if you are not able to talk to them about important things in life. This is something that you cultivate over many years and if you need help building a relationship with your kid, it is never too late--you can start today to heal yourself and to heal your family. A good relationship means that there is emotional and physical safety, predictability (kids know what to expect from you), consistency (you follow through) and you both enjoy spending time together (i.e. doing things with your child that your child enjoys). A relationship means you can problem-solve when issues come up instead of screaming, fighting or withdrawing. If you are a parent and you never got these things as a kid, please make a commitment to do your own emotional healing and work on your family's health. 3) Tell your kid they can choose to watch this show when they are an adult. When your kid is an adult, they will be able to make their own decisions around what to watch. Being critical of what to watch and why you watch it is really important. Watching something because "everyone else is doing it" or because you *think* it will help you talk about suicide or rape means you have work to do as a parent and as a family. 4) If you still decide to watch this show, please watch it with you kid. Do not let your kid watch it alone. Please pause the show and explain what is going on in the show. If you don't know how to talk about suicide, rape, drugs and drinking, please educate yourself by drawing from the research: SAMHSA, CDC, Suicide Prevention Line, RAIIN.

This series was smartly crafted and presents real life topics that middle and high school kids are faced with daily. Among teens (and adults), this show was buzzing and the kids were all talking about it so I agreed to watch it with my teen daughters so that we could unpack every episode and process the heavy content. If, as a parent, you are censoring your child from watching it and you, yourself, are running from it due to the topics presented, then you are likely living in denial or living in a bubble somewhere because the show is not promoting behaviors like sex, drugs, suicide, etc. The reality is that kids are already seeing or hearing about this stuff at school, at home in many occasions or on other shows (but far less tactfully done). As a parent, this series has given me the opportunity to open up lines of communication between me and my kids about very difficult topics that otherwise we might've not discussed and I'm grateful for the production of this series. I highly recommend this show; Again, parents and teens need to watch and process TOGETHER. Be ready for ready for any questions and thoughts your kids may have as there will be many... That's OUR JOB...

Attention parents and families, I know many people have said this show is either really bad or really good. I'm here to say that this show is both good and bad. I have seen this show mentally mess with people my daughters age, a girl commits suicide and decides to tell people why they were the reason she did it. Suicide is a very big issue that needs to be talked about but certainly not like this, learning about stuff like this through shows is the wrong way to do it. When kids watch these shows they get the wrong idea and they don't want to ask questions they just assume what they understand is correct. Especially (spoiler coming) at the end of the first season they show the audience how Hannah killed herself with all the blood and everything. That is not something that should have been put on tv, there are children watching this show and some who may be hiding a mental health issue. This show has shown the audience different ways as to how to kill yourself. Parents please sit down and talk to your child make sure they are okay. Let it be known to your children that they can talk to you about anything because mental health is a very big issue among kids. I advise you NOT to let your teens to watch this alone because I had watch this with my daughter and it was even too much for me. Another thing this show is not for the light hearted, if you or your child have experienced mental health issues do not watch it I had to skip over scenes that triggered me personally. This show is not an accurate portrayal of mental health, they glorify suicide too much. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem that many people make for themselves when they feel as if they are alone. In this show it was wrong for the producers to have Hannah's tapes haunt and torture people and drive them insane. It should have not been written where she blames others for her death because it is not always like that. Teenagers need to learn about suicide, rape, drugs, sex and etc. from parents and professionals, don't shelter your kids from these topics. But also don't let tv shows and movies be the ones to teach our children because who knows how they might perceive it.

U can NEVER unSee

Hello, My name is Lucas and I just want to say is... I'm a smart kid, I won't learn from any of this. Even if I had depression I still wouldn't think of killing myself from watching this. I think it's a show that kids should learn from but not do in real life. Yes, the show has rape, sex, swearing, BUT some kids out there won't learn to swear from this. I do see kids swear but I really don't care, Like they can do what they want to do. But I'm on episode 8 and so far I think it's a great show to show your children. (if they are smart enough not to do what they do irl)

I think overall the TV show is great and addresses real life problems......if you live a secular life. Some parents are fine with teenage sex, partying, drinking and drugs. I honestly think if your child is having sex and going through these things, this show is great for them. If you are religious like me, your views might be more sheltered. So let me warn about the “bad” stuff. First off there is teen sex in almost every episode, nudity is common except no gentiles, at one point a main character is struggling with his sexuality and watches some very, very explicit porn, trying to “turn himself on” and and breasts and stripping are show at length, again there are no gentiles. Rape is very spoken off topic although full rape scenes are never shown bits and pieces are remembered by the victims. One boy is raped with a mop being stuck down his anus and we see him screaming in agony. Drugs is also a main part of the plot where a main character is struggling with staying “clean” from heroine which we see him smoking and shooting, at one point he almost chokes on his own puke, but is saved by a friend. This same character’s mother was also an addict and it’s mentioned that she had many abusive boyfriends that molested the boy. Molly, weed, and cocaine is also being shown taken with not as bad side affects such as headaches, grogginess and nausea. Many character’s have drinking problems and are often show doing stupid things while drunk. The whole show revolves around a girls suicide and how it affected almost everyone she knew, one main character almost shoots himself another does but survived with the side affect of amnesia. Many people are held at gun point, teens are seen shooting guns to blow off steam that may or may not be illegal. The same characters also go on a secret revenge streak that is mischievous and cruel but never dangerous. A main character who is a rapist is beaten up by one character and drowned by another resulting in his death. Language is very harsh expect Fuck in almost every sentence. Overall it was really entertaining definitely worth it.

I am extremely disappointed in this show for their ignorant and stereotypical joke about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Although it was a brief moment in the show, I feel that it was enough to completely undermine the seriousness of the mental illness. This show has themes involving depression and anxiety but makes light of a seriously debilitating mental illness. This show doesn’t care about the teenagers and adults watching that may have or suspect they have OCD. Does this show even have a clinical psychologist on set to educate the writers before they influence the millions of teens watching with their content? OCD is already an incredibly misunderstood disease. It’s just frustrating to see this.

Just talk to your kids before and after watching this show.

This show isn’t explicit but if you’re child is mature I recommend watching this it will prepare them for high school and things the year will face there and it will help them feel comfortable talking with you about problems

There is an explicit suicide scene, there is more than one rape scenes, one in particular is really tough and it's not suitable for kids.