Speaking as a kid labeled “troubled,” and subjected to all sorts of therapeutic horseshit as a child, much of which bordered on coercive brainwashing in the name of Jesus, I recommend against Netflix’s show, “Wayward” on all counts. Lukewarm acting, script that unravels into incomprehensibility at the end, scattered plot and pacing, it just isn’t good.

But as a kid who went through a lot of this sort of thing, I really got annoyed by their portrayal of what it is to be a “troubled kid.” The writers never miss a chance to show the kids doing drugs, having careless casual sex, committing serious crimes and doing everything else that a controlling parent wants to believe that their kid is doing every day. Somebody had to “control” these kids, right?

In a lot of cases I’m very familiar with on a personal and professional level, “troubled kid” means a kid who doesn’t fit their parents’ expectations. Since they think they own their child, they consider the child defective, and something to be repaired, regardless of what has to be done to the child to bring it about.