Boot Camps in Winter Haven, Florida Can Help Troubled Teens, if They Are Like Gateway Boys Academy

Are you looking into boot camps near Winter Haven, Florida to straighten out an out-of-control teen? Find out how boot camps can help troubled teens and discover how Gateway’s program may be even more effective for your teen.

If your teen demonstrates blatant disregard for authority, commonly displays rebellious behavior, gets into regular and escalating disturbances with the law, and lacks cooperation in school, perhaps a boot camp can help improve your troubled teen. 

Boot Camps in Winter Haven, Florida Can Help Troubled Teens Learn to Respect Authority

Public impression gives military academies, especially boot camps, a reputation for making rebellious teens put their lives in order. In fact, there are several positive ways in which boot camps can help troubled teens. Boot camps give 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 situations, most teenage issues are much more complex than they seem on the surface and may only be symptoms of other emotional problems. Boot camps rely entirely on modifying behavior; they do not include the therapeutic support to help teens deal with the true root issues. For teens displaying anxiety, depression, drug or alcohol use, low self-esteem, emotional disorders, and in fact most forms 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 Winter Haven, Florida on their own will not address family concerns 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 Winter Haven, Florida are typically 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 cities all across the nation for more than 20 years. Troubled teenage boys from Winter Haven, Florida and other cities benefit from an accredited education, counseling and instruction, instruction in military drill and history, and the discipline for which boot camps are known. 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 constructive  input, not simply breaking teens down.
• Biblical instruction and spiritual focus, to help teens realize the true source of lasting heart change.
• Mentoring, to help teens address problems and replace self-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 a longer term mentoring program like what Gateway offers. We invite you to look beyond Winter Haven, Florida, 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!