DOCUMENTARY31 JUL 2026When parenting reaches breaking point, ‘Bad Behaviour’ asks who we trust with our childrenA new M-Net documentary series, ‘Bad Behaviour’, delves into South Africa’s growing ‘troubled teen’ industry,…Lesego Chepape6 min read

Scroll through TikTok for long enough and you will inevitably find them: exhausted parents filming themselves after another difficult day, asking strangers for advice about teenagers who refuse to listen, children struggling with addiction or young people whose behaviour has spiralled beyond what families feel equipped to manage. Some videos are humorous. Others are heartbreaking.

Many end with the same refrain: “I’ve tried everything.” That desperation has become part of modern parenting. It has also created fertile ground for an industry promising quick fixes. The new upcoming documentary seriesBad Behaviourexamines what happens when families, convinced they have reached the end of the road, hand their children over to behavioural correction camps and rehabilitation facilities that promise discipline, transformation and a second chance.

For some families, the decision changed their lives forever. examines what happens when families, convinced they have reached the end of the road, hand their children over to behavioural correction camps and rehabilitation facilities that promise discipline, transformation and a second chance. Produced by IdeaCandy for M-Net, the investigative series explores South Africa’s growing “troubled teen” industry, questioning the practices inside some of the facilities and the systems that allow them to continue operating with limited oversight.

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For director Richard Gregory, the investigation quickly became about something much larger than misbehaving teenagers. “I hope people are looking less at the behaviour of the children and more at parenting as a concept,” he says. “How do we parent effectively?

How do we deal with children when they’re going off the rails? That’s the conversation we need to be having.”

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