How To Protect Boys From the Manosphere, According to a Psychotherapist - Newsweek

Shutting down a conversation is the fastest way to stop helping your child navigate the damaging thoughts around gender and relationships visible online, a family psychotherapist told Newsweek.

Zara Kadir, who specializes in child and family psychotherapy, says parents worried about the manosphere's grip on their sons need to resist the urge to correct, dismiss or panic when they repeat "red pill" beliefs they have heard online—and get curious instead.

"If your son is starting to say things he's heard about women, your first instinct might be to correct him, but the problem is, if he feels dismissed or embarrassed, he may stop talking to you, and then, the person online who tells him, 'your parents won't understand this but I'll tell you how the world really works,' suddenly becomes much more appealing," Kadir said.

Kadir, 41, holds two master's degrees—one in counseling and psychotherapy with adults, and another in child, adolescent and family psychotherapy—and is herself the mother of two children.

She has spoken publicly about the growing influence of manosphere content on young boys, an issue that has moved from the margins of parenting discourse to its center over the past few years, and which reached a cultural flashpoint in 2025 with the release of the acclaimed Netflix drama, Adolescence.

The British television series, which followed a 13-year-old accused of murdering a female classmate after being radicalized by the online misogyny rampant in manosphere forums, forced a wider reckoning with how easily manosphere rhetoric can reach children—and how ill-equipped many parents feel to respond.

For Kadir, the instinct many parents have—to argue, correct or forbid—is understandable but often counterproductive.

The goal, she said, is to keep the lines of communication open long before boys start quoting red pill influencers at the dinner table.

Kadir's central piece of advice is simple: take your child's thoughts seriously, even the ones that sound absurd.

"You need to indulge your children's thoughts and curiosities even if you think that they are ridiculous," she said. "If you shut down a conversation before it's even begun, then you will send them further away."

She uses an everyday example to illustrate the principle.

"It's the same as when your 10-year-old asks you if they can have a phone," she said. "You might know the answer will be no, but that doesn't mean you should simply say no and close the conversation down.

"Instead, I suggest asking questions like, 'why would you want a phone?' 'What would you do with it?' The end of the conversation may be the same, but you've left your child with the underlying thought that they can always ask you questions and you would always hear them out."

That same approach, she said, becomes essential once boys start bringing home ideas absorbed from online figures in the manosphere—content that often frames women, relationships and masculinity in rigid, transactional terms that are in opposition to feminist ideals.

Rather than confronting a son's claim head-on, Kadir recommends leaning into it.

"Get curious. Try, 'that's interesting, where did you hear that?' and then, 'do you think all women want that?' You're not agreeing with him, you're helping him examine the claim rather than simply replacing somebody else's opinion with yours," she said.

Parents can gently challenge the logic of sweeping generalizations, she added, by pointing out the sheer scale of what is being claimed: "You could say, 'be careful of anyone who takes billions of people and says they are all the exact same way.'"

The more revealing question, Kadir said, comes next—and it turns the focus away from women entirely and back onto the boy himself.

"I'd ask the question, 'what does believing that make you feel about yourself?' Because underneath 'women really want rich men' might actually be, 'I'm worried no one will ever want me.'"

That reframing is, for Kadir, the crux of the issue.

Manosphere content rarely takes hold because boys are persuaded by ideology alone; clinicians like Kadir say it catches on because it offers certainty, status and belonging to boys who feel insecure, unseen or anxious about their place in the world. Addressing the anxiety beneath the rhetoric, rather than the rhetoric itself, is what keeps a boy talking to his parents instead of retreating further into forums and feeds that promise to explain "how the world really works."

Concerns about the manosphere's reach into childhood are not new, but buzzy media like Adolescence crystallized them for a mainstream audience, prompting schools, charities and policymakers in some countries to grapple publicly with how radicalizing content spreads among boys online.

Kadir's approach offers parents a starting point that does not rely on banning devices or winning arguments, but on staying curious enough, for long enough, that their son keeps choosing to talk to them and from there, learning more.