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

Are you searching for boot camps close to Smithtown, New York to try to help a out-of-control teen? See how boot camps can help troubled teens and learn about how Gateway’s program may be even more beneficial for your teen.

If your teen shows blatant disregard for authority, unceasingly displays defiant behavior, gets into frequent and growing disturbances with the law, and shows no cooperation in school, perhaps a boot camp can help sort out your troubled teen. 

Boot Camps in Smithtown, New York Can Help At-Risk Boys Learn to Respect Authority

Popular opinion gives military academies, especially boot camps, a reputation for making rebellious 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 integrity 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 teens who respond well to 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 unhealthy habits, to more manageable behavior. But those bad attitudes often return.

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

Although boot camps can help troubled teens in some situations, most adolescent issues are much more complex than they appear on the surface and are only the symptoms of other emotional problems. Boot camps focus entirely on modifying behavior; they do not include the therapy 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 instances 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 Smithtown, New York on their own will not deal with family communication issues but simply return a somewhat more obedient teen to the same home situation in which he was struggling. Boys who attend boot camps are more likely to return to old habits.  In fact, boot camps in Smithtown, 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 component of a therapeutic boarding school. Gateway, found in the Panhandle of Florida, is a Christian program that has worked with – and brought restoration to- struggling teenage boys and their families from locations all across the nation for well over 20 years. Troubled teenage boys from Smithtown, New York and other cities receive an accredited education, counseling and instruction, an introduction to military drill and history, and the discipline for which boot camps are known. Gateway offers a  loving staff that cares deeply about each teen. Gateway is a military-style school that features several critical 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 focus, to help teens realize the true source of lasting heart change.
• Counseling, to help teens work through issues and replace harmful patterns with healthy new habits.
• 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 Smithtown, 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!