Boot Camps in Fort Pierce, Florida Can Help Troubled Teens, if They Are Like Gateway Boys Academy

Are you researching boot camps in or around Fort Pierce, Florida to deal with a defiant teen? Read on to see how boot camps can help troubled teens and look at how Gateway’s program may prove even more successful for your teen.

If your teen shows blatant disregard for authority, commonly displays defiant behavior, gets into regular and increasing disturbances with the law, and lacks cooperation in school, perhaps a boot camp can help improve your troubled teen. 

Boot Camps in Fort Pierce, Florida Can Help At-Risk Boys Learn to Respect Authority

Public conception gives military academies, especially boot camps, a reputation for making rebellious teens get back on the straight and narrow path. In truth, there are several positive ways in which boot camps can help troubled teens. Boot camps offer an intensive focus on discipline, personal responsibility and respect for authority. Programs like these can send a wake-up call to a teen who is moving toward a life of crime. For those who respond well to it, boot camps can give them a new understanding of the consequences of their actions. For some teens, boot camps can initially help them move from self-defeating habits, to more appropriate behavior. But those bad attitudes often return.

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

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

Most boot camps in Fort Pierce, Florida on their own will not address family problems but simply return a somewhat more obedient 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 Fort Pierce, Florida may be 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 another option that combines the benefits of the military style with the therapeutic input of a therapeutic boarding school. Gateway, located in the Panhandle of Florida, is a Christian program that has worked with – and brought hope to- struggling teenage boys and their families from locations all across the nation for well over 20 years. Troubled teenage boys from Fort Pierce, Florida 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 a number of critical 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 realize the true source of lasting heart change.
• Counseling, to help teens deal with problems and replace harmful patterns with healthy new choices.
• Family restoration 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 Fort Pierce, Florida, 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!