Military life affects everyone involved for not only do those who are deployed experience symptoms of stress and anxiety but their family as well. This particular paper will examine how military life affects the children as they deal with this type of stressful environment where one or both of their parents could be frequently absent. Often “the effect of parental deployment in previous wars has shown children having an increase in behavioral problems” (James & Countryman, 2012). Now, however, military children are displaying signs of stress and anxiety by their grades declining and depression as the rate of parents being deployed continues to increase (James & Countryman, 2012). Children also tend to lash out as they deal with the overwhelming emotions produced by stress and anxiety which can then turn to moments of physical violence the longer their parents are deployed.
This stress that military children experience is non-normative for they do not choose to feel this way as a means to conform to society. They are stressed whether they want to or not because they are worried about their parents who they may never see again which would make anyone anxious. In order to help military children cope with the stress and anxiety of having a parent, or parents, overseas one must first take into account the child’s age and maturity level for every child experiences military life differently (realwarriors 2016). The coping strategy that this paper suggests is to have the children keep in touch with their parents whether it’s by video or through other programs that can be found online (realwarriors 2016). By constantly seeing their face and hearing their voice, children will be able to interact with their parents even when they are half a world apart which will not only make the separation easier, but lessen the child’s stress as well.
Work Cited
Helping Children Cope with Deployments and Reunions. (2016). Retrieved July 05, 2016, from http://www.realwarriors.net/family/children
James, T., & Countryman, J. (2012, February). Psychiatric Effects of Military Deployment on Children and Families: The Use of Play Therapy for Assessment and Treatment. Retrieved July 05, 2016, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3312898/
Stay Connected with Deployed Parents. (2016). Retrieved July 05, 2016, from http://www.realwarriors.net/family/children/stayconnected.php
