Boot Camps in Washington, Pennsylvania Can Help Troubled Teens, if They Are Like Gateway Boys Academy

Are you looking into boot camps in or around Washington, Pennsylvania to try to help a out-of-control teen? Read on to see how boot camps can help troubled teens and look at how Gateway’s program may be even more effective for your teen.

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

Boot Camps in Washington, Pennsylvania Can Help At-Risk Boys Learn to Respect Authority

Popular opinion gives military schools, especially boot camps, a reputation for making badly behaved teens put their lives in order. As a matter of fact, there are several positive ways in which boot camps can help troubled teens. Boot camps give a crash course in discipline, personal integrity 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 the ones 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 unhealthy habits, to more manageable behavior. But those bad attitudes often return.

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

Even though boot camps can help troubled teens in some situations, most teenage issues are more complicated than they appear on the surface and may only be symptoms of other problems. Boot camps focus entirely on modifying behavior; they do not include the counseling or therapeutic input to help teens address the true underlying issues. For teens exhibiting anxiety, depression, drug or alcohol use, poor self-esteem, emotional disorders, and in fact most forms 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 Washington, Pennsylvania 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 Washington, Pennsylvania 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 strengths of the military approach with the therapeutic aspect of a therapeutic boarding school. Gateway, found in the Panhandle of Florida, is a Christian program that has helped thousands of struggling teenage boys and their families from homes all across the country for well over 20 years. Troubled teenage boys from Washington, Pennsylvania and other places receive an accredited academic program, counseling and instruction, 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 includes a number of critical components that are typically absent from boot camps. Those include: 

• Caring staff and mentors who provide positive role models and individual mentorship, not simply breaking teens down.
• Biblical instruction and spiritual emphasis, to help teens find the true source of lasting heart change.
• Mentoring, to help teens address issues and replace destructive 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 Washington, Pennsylvania, 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!