Boot Camps in Macon, Georgia Can Help Troubled Teens, if They Are Like Gateway Boys Academy

Are you researching boot camps close to Macon, Georgia to straighten out a rebellious teen? Find out how boot camps can help troubled teens and discover how Gateway’s program may be even more successful for your teen.

If your teen shows blatant disregard for authority, forever displays defiant behavior, gets into regular and increasing trouble with the law, and shows no motivation in school, perhaps a boot camp will help bring him back to his senses. 

Boot Camps in Macon, Georgia Can Help Boys Learn to Respect Authority

Public impression gives military academies, especially boot camps, a reputation for making wayward teens put their lives in order. In fact, there are several positive ways in which boot camps can help troubled teens. Boot camps give a crash course in discipline, personal responsibility and respect for authority. Programs like these can send a wake-up call to a teen who might otherwise ruin his life with crime. For those teens who are shaped by 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 unhealthy habits, to more appropriate behavior. But those bad attitudes often return.

Boot Camps Can Help Troubled Teens 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 more complicated than they seem on the surface and are only the symptoms of other issues. Boot camps rely entirely on modifying behavior; they do not offer the therapeutic support to help teens resolve the true root issues. For teens showing anxiety, depression, drug or alcohol use, poor self-esteem, emotional disorders, and in fact most types 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 Macon, Georgia fail to deal with family problems — they simply return a somewhat more compliant teenage to the same home and school situation where he was struggling. Boys who attend boot camps are more likely to return to old habits.  In fact, boot camps in Macon, Georgia are 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 strengths of the military style with the therapeutic component of a therapeutic boarding school. Gateway, found in the Panhandle of Florida, is a Christian program that has worked with – and brought hope to- struggling teenage boys and their families from homes all across the nation for more than 20 years. Troubled teenage boys from Macon, Georgia and other cities receive an accredited education, counseling and teaching, an introduction to military drill and history, and the discipline for which boot camps are known. Gateway offers staff that care deeply about each student. Gateway is a military-style school that includes 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 emphasis, to help teens realize the true source of lasting heart change.
• Counseling, to help teens deal with issues and replace destructive 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 Macon, Georgia, 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!