Boot Camps in Medford, New York Can Help Troubled Teens, if They Are Like Gateway Boys Academy

Are you trying to find boot camps close to Medford, New York to deal with a defiant teen? See how boot camps can help troubled teens and learn about how Gateway’s program may be even more effective for your teen.

If your teen shows blatant disregard for authority, commonly displays defiant behavior, gets into regular and escalating disturbances with the law, and lacks cooperation in school, perhaps a boot camp will help bring him back to his senses. 

Boot Camps in Medford, New York Can Help Troubled Teens Learn to Respect Authority

Public conception gives military academies, especially boot camps, a reputation for making wayward teens put their lives in order. In fact, in several positive ways, boot camps can help troubled teens. Boot camps provide a crash course in discipline, personal responsibility and respect for authority. Programs like these can send a powerful message to a teen who is moving toward a life of 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 Adolescents Change their Behavior, But Many Teen Issues Go Beyond the Behavior

Despite the fact that boot camps can help troubled teens in some situations, most adolescent issues are more complicated than they seem on the surface and are only the symptoms of other emotional problems. Boot camps focus entirely on behavior modification; they do not include the therapy to help teens resolve the true root issues. For teens with anxiety, depression, drug use, poor self-esteem, emotional disorders, and in fact most forms of rebellious behavior, the stressful 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 Medford, New York on their own will not address family concerns 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 Medford, New York 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 another option that combines the strengths of the military approach with the therapeutic input of a therapeutic boarding school. Gateway, 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 well over 20 years. Troubled teenage boys from Medford, New York and other cities receive an accredited education, counseling and instruction, instruction in military drill and history, and the discipline for which boot camps are renowned. Gateway offers a  compassionate staff that cares deeply about each teen. 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 constructive  input, not simply breaking teens down.
• Biblical instruction and spiritual emphasis, to help teens realize the true source of lasting heart change.
• Counseling, to help teens work through struggles 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 Medford, New York, 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!