'poor life choices' can be relative. if a kid decides to hang out with people who break the law (e.g., use cocaine, break driving laws) and put themselves at risk then i have sympathy for the notion that they are making a poor life choice.

if a kid decides to drop physics and pick up music because that is more important to her and the parent regards that to be a 'poor life choice' then it is looking more like a value clash, however. in that case i have less sympathy for the parent imposing their values on their child.

similarly if a kid goes from an A student to barely scraping through there is probably a problem there. If a kid goes from an A student to an A- or a B+ student then there might well be a problem but i wouldn't be panicking just yet.

how old are your kids dalilia? there is a big difference between a kid of 12 and a kid of 19. there is also a big difference in maturity between different kids of the same age. if a kid is basically trustworthy then it is good to trust them. if a kid hasn't been so honest then it can be harder to know when trust is justified, to be sure.

the extent and nature of the problems sound quite different.

> The forebrain where executive functioning takes place is barely functioning during these years. It can also be a warning of bigger problems.

teens don't have such good impulse control as adults do but once again there is considerable variation in impulse control with teenagers as there is with adults. some teens have better impulse control than i could ever hope to have! the forebrain functions quite well in many respects (mathemeticians and logicians tend to peak young and mathematical and logical ability is a forebrain function).

since adults are sometimes put under a treatment order and confined and medicated against their will i'd be surely surprised if minors didn't have the same provision made for them in the case of loss of rational faculties.

i would say that the variation in the two cases is due to:
1) the severity (nature) of the problems
2) as a consequence of that the theoretical orientation of the therapist
3) the age of the kids involved