if your child has a serious mental illness or has experienced a trauma, or is suffering from anxiety or even if they are using drugs the worst possible thing you can do is send them to a lockdown facility where all their freedoms and rights are taken away and they are psychologically broken until they emotionally crack. As for drug use, the ‘D.A.R.E’ generation spread serious misinformation about drugs and essentially used propaganda to justify locking up hundreds of thousands of people to make money for private prisons. ‘Troubled Teen’ is a marketing tactic used to demonize mental illness and drug use. I have multiple friends who were sent away to places (some wilderness others ranches/facilities) and when they came back NONE OF THEM WERE THE SAME. One kid was an alcoholic, the other one was a ‘bad kid’ who did a lot of drugs and didn’t give a shit and the last kid had extremely catholic parents who decided that, because he was drinking and smoking weed, he needed to be sent away (he wasn’t an alcoholic or a drug addict). When the last kid came back he was literally brain dead and would sit in the corner of the room with his arms crossed and no expression on his face. There is no regulation of these sorts of places and many kids have died because of medical neglect or rough handling. Certain senators have been trying to pass regulation but it has failed. I just came across an article stating that a Democratic representative is introducing the bill again this year (I have little hope in it passing). It is worth mentioning that Mitt Romney was the CEO of a company called ‘Bain Capital’ that owns a company that runs these places. I would recommend going on Wikipedia and searching either Aspen Education Group or WWASP (a couple larger companies involved with this industry) and take a look at all the former schools and wilderness therapies that have been shut down, the lawsuits filed against them and the abuse allegations.Â