Boot Camps in Bel Air, Maryland Can Help Troubled Teens, if They Are Like Gateway Boys Academy

Are you researching boot camps near Bel Air, Maryland to try to help a rebellious teen? Read on to see how boot camps can help troubled teens and look at how Gateway’s program may be even more successful for your teen.

If your teen demonstrates unashamed disregard for authority, unceasingly displays defiant behavior, gets into regular and increasing disturbances with the law, and lacks cooperation in school, perhaps a boot camp can help sort out your troubled teen. 

Boot Camps in Bel Air, Maryland Can Help Troubled Teens Learn to Respect Authority

Popular impression gives military schools, especially boot camps, a reputation for making out-of-control teens put their lives in order. In truth, there are several positive ways in which boot camps can help troubled teens. Boot camps give a crash course in discipline, personal integrity and regard for authority. Programs like these can send a powerful message to a teen who is moving toward a life of crime. For those who are shaped by it, boot camps can give them a new understanding of the consequences of their actions. For some individuals, boot camps can initially help them move from self-defeating habits, to more respectable behavior. But those bad attitudes often return.

Boot Camps Can Help Troubled Boys Change their Behavior, But Many Teen Issues Go Beyond the Behavior

Even though boot camps can help troubled teens in some cases, most teenage issues are much more complex than they seem on the surface and are only the symptoms of other issues. Boot camps focus entirely on behavior modification; they do not provide the therapy to help teens resolve the true root issues. For teens exhibiting anxiety, depression, drug use, poor self-esteem, emotional disorders, and in fact most forms of rebellious behavior, the strict discipline of the boot camp environment may prove counterproductive instead, if it isn’t set up in a way that the discipline is coupled with Christian love and support.

Most boot camps in Bel Air, Maryland on their own will not deal with family communication issues but simply return a somewhat more respectful teen to the same home environment in which he was struggling. Boys who attend boot camps are more likely to return to old habits.  In fact, boot camps in Bel Air, Maryland are typically a short-term solution at best, and may be harmful to the teen at worst. Sadly, teens often revert to past behavior after returning home from short-term boot camps, because the length of the program doesn’t instill the attitude changes as a habit in their life.

Gateway’s Boot Camp-Like Program, Plus It’s Ongoing Behavioral Support are Designed to Turn Around Troubled Boys

If you find that a traditional short-term boot camp is not the best choice for your teen, but you still like the idea of what a boot camp teaches, Gateway an alternative that combines the benefits of the military approach with the therapeutic input of a therapeutic boarding school. Gateway, located in the Panhandle of Florida, is a Christian program that has served – and brought hope to- struggling teenage boys and their families from cities all across the country for more than 20 years. Troubled teenage boys from Bel Air, Maryland and other cities benefit from an accredited education, counseling and teaching, an introduction to military drill and history, and the discipline for which boot camps are respected. Gateway offers a  compassionate staff that cares deeply about each teen. Gateway is a military-style school that features several essential components that are typically missing from boot camps. Those include: 

• Caring staff and mentors who provide positive role models and concerned involvement, not simply breaking teens down.
• Biblical teaching and spiritual focus, to help teens find the true source of lasting heart change.
• Counseling, to help teens work through issues and replace harmful patterns with healthy new choices.
• Family healing through Biblical instruction and seminars for parents and families.

Boot camps can help troubled teens if they are coupled with a longer term mentoring program like what Gateway offers. We invite you to look beyond Bel Air, Maryland, for what may be the best situation your boy…a program with a boot camp element, but also ongoing instruction and mentoring for a longer period of  time.

Gateway is Located in the Panhandle of Florida. Boys Come to Gateway from Around the Country. Call Us!