Boot Camps in Westminster, MD Can Help Troubled Teens, if They Are Like Gateway Boys Academy

Are you looking for boot camps close to Westminster, Maryland to straighten out an out-of-control teen? Find out how boot camps can help troubled teens and look at how Gateway’s program may prove even more effective for your teen.

If your teen exhibits unashamed disregard for authority, unceasingly displays rebellious behavior, gets into frequent and growing trouble with the law, and lacks motivation in school, perhaps a boot camp can help improve your troubled teen. 

Boot Camps in Westminster, Maryland Can Help Boys Learn to Respect Authority

Public impression gives military academies, especially boot camps, a reputation for making unruly teens get back on the straight and narrow path. As a matter of fact, there are several positive ways in which boot camps can help troubled teens. Boot camps provide an intensive focus on 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 are shaped by 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 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 teenage issues are much more complex than they seem on the surface and are often only symptoms of other emotional problems. Boot camps focus entirely on forcing compliance; they do not provide the therapeutic support to help teens address the true underlying 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 Westminster, MD on their own will not deal with family concerns but simply return a somewhat more obedient teen to the same home situation in which he was struggling. Then he will return to old habits.  For this reasons, boot camps in Westminster, MD are typically a short-term solution at best, and may be harmful to the teen at worst. Fact is, teens often revert to past behavior after returning home from short-term boot camps, because the length of the program doesn’t make the good attitudes, respect and discipline 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 benefits of the military approach with the therapeutic aspect of a therapeutic boarding school. Gateway, located in the Panhandle of Florida, is a Christian program that has helped – and brought restoration to- struggling teenage boys and their families from places all across the country for well over 20 years. Struggling teenage boys from Westminster, Maryland and other places benefit from an accredited academic program, counseling and teaching, an introduction to military drill and history, and the discipline for which boot camps are respected. Gateway offers a  loving staff that cares deeply about each teen. Gateway is a military-style school that features a number of critical components that are typically absent from boot camps. Those include: 

• Caring staff and mentors who provide positive role models and constructive  input, 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 issues and replace destructive patterns with healthy new habits.
• Family healing through Biblical instruction and seminars for parents and families.

Boot camps can help troubled teens if they are coupled with an ongoing program like Gateway offers. We invite you to look beyond Westminster, Maryland, 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!