The children in military families face daily challenges because of deployment to war. Some do not understand why their parent has to leave, how long they will be gone or where they are going. The effects of deployment on children differ from the age they are. For example, an infant is going to act completely different than a teenager. Depending on the child they may feel unsecure because their comfort level has changed once their parent, guardian or older brother or sister has left. These people may be the only people around their house that they can trust. There is many different factors in how your child will react during the deployment process. You have to mentally and physically prepare your child for deployment, you must know how they are going to react, in order to watch out for them to keep them secure. Not only you have to prepare yourself and your child for deployment but you also need to prepare for them to come home and the challenges you may face as a family. Parents should support and watch their children of every age through every aspect of deployment, even when the family member is coming home, help them feel secure in their home, and help them talk though the emotions they face throughout the process of deployment. In the past decade, more than two million Americans have been deployed overseas from America being at war with Iraq and Afghanistan. That is about .63 percent of the United States population but is also the equivalent of New Mexico; two million people. People can be deployed at any time when they are with the United States Military, whether it is the United States Navy, Marines, Army, Air Force or Coast Guard. It is never known when they will be asked to fight overseas and it will never be planned. ... ... middle of paper ... ...s a way, she informed me that they stayed constant throughout the entire process. I also had the chance to ask her if she tends to take more risks when her father is away and she replied with “I tend to take fewer risks so there is less stress on my mother, because deployment is a very stressful thing in my house.” Not only did she inform me about how she looks out for her mother more when her father is away, but that she also prayed while he was away, for his safety overseas as well as her safety at home while her and her family slept. She did inform me that she felt like she did not need to pray when he is home because her safety net is in the same house with her and not thousands of miles away in the middle of a warzone. Rebecca and her family is just one out of two million families that deal with spouses or loved ones being overseas for long periods of time.
When Military fathers or mothers return from military deployment, there is usually a significant amount of adjustment needed to be made. Depending on the length of stay while deployed, many families find themselves having to re-adjust to having their loved one back home again.
...volving death and separation. Children within the United States whose parents serve in the military are left to deal with issues of separation and fear. The fear of not knowing when their parents are coming home, and if they’ll come back the same person they were when they left. Since we are incapable of hiding violence and the act of war from children, it is better to help them understand the meaning behind it and teach them that violence is not always the answer. Children react based on what they see and hear, and if the community and world around them portrays positive things, then the child will portray a positive attitude as well.
Growing up I always had to deal with the fact that my father was involved in the military. My father was deployed twice: once in Germany, and later to Kuwait. I was only four years old when he first traveled and almost every day I asked where dad was. The second time I was fourteen, and I was devastated that my best friend wasn’t going to be home for a year. Both times he left, it was awful for my mom, my brother, and me because he was the one person that kept us together as a family and once he was gone we were just broken. A military family goes through more than a regular family does in a year. Those veterans have families, how do people think they feel. Children who live in a military family have a higher risk of depression, anxiety, and other mental issues. Although many people believe that we should send our soldiers overseas to keep our country safe, there is no reason why our
Deployment is a word that all military spouses and military families dread to hear. When my husband came home to our barely moved in house with news of his deployment to Afghanistan, I was devastated. Though we received terrible news, we also felt incredible joy that same week. I was pregnant with our first child. We were overjoyed by this news but it also meant that my husband would be away the first eight months of our son’s life.
Many children are born into families that are a part of a branch of the military. Parents may wonder if the constant moving and deployment will bring negative effects on a child’s development. The rigorous lifestyle of the military can have negative effects on the children’s development growing up, but the opportunity of living as a military child is a culturally diverse, socially strong, and mature development of characteristics. The military life offers many benefits for raising a child. Have a family in the military lifestyle can greatly help the children’s development of positives characteristics.
These children often miss their deployed parent dearly. In The New York Times article Military Wife During Deployment Is Asked, ‘Is It Worth It?’ The wife and 5-year-old daughter of a navy helicopter pilot are at a wedding when the daughter started crying uncontrollably “‘Daddy,’ she said, sobbing. ‘I miss my daddy.’ … ‘I don’t want YOUR daddy,’ she cried to me. ‘Not Finley’s daddy, or Addie’s daddy, I want MY daddy.’” She saw a picture of him and broke into tears because he wasn’t there to share in the happy memories. Situations like these are
feelings of tension, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, loss of control, and nightmares. The families of these soldiers often experience similar symptoms. An article published in the journal Family Relations describes how wives experience similar symptoms as their husbands:
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) develops after a terrifying ordeal that involved physical harm or the threat of physical harm. The person who develops PTSD may have been the one who was harmed or the person may have witnessed a harmful event that happened to loved ones or strangers.
Keep your home a safe place. Often children tend to find home to be a safe environment, when everything around them seems to be very overwhelming. It is important to remember that during a time of crisis children may come home seeking safety. After a traumatic event, it is normal for children and even adults to experience a varied of emotions such as shock, anger, grief, and even anxiety. Sometime their behaviors will change because of how the response back to the event. They could even sometime experience trouble sleeping, difficulty with concentrating on school work or changes in appetite. Inspire your children to try putting their feelings into words by talking about them or writing it in their journal. Some children find expressing their feeling through art very helpful.
Throughout the years of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have seen the media coverage of newly deployed soldiers and returning the faces of children and spouses left at home heartbreaking meeting and happy when returning soldiers. Many military parents have experienced multiple deployments and expanded over the last decade, but only recently has attention turned to the effects on children whose parents are deployed. Recent studies indicate that children of military families with a deployed parent is under stress, causing an increase in visits to pediatric care for anxiety, behavioral disorders and other mental health problems (Chandra, Lara-Cinisomo, Jaycox, et al, 2010;. Chandra, Martin Hawkins, and Richardson, 2010; Chartrand, Frank, white, and Shope, 2008, Flake, Davis, Johnson & Middleton, 2009; Gorman, Eide, and Hist-Gorman, 2010 ).
American children should be educated more about the psychological trauma that co-exists with foreign wars. The violence of the war spreads though the nation, having a major affect on the children. Children are more vulnerable to suffering from parental psychological problems. Since children are inherently dependent on their parents that makes them vulnerable to suffering from the same problems that they see in their parents. Studies have shown that children with parents that served in the military have a higher risk of undergoing child abuse. American children should understand the costs of war and its consequences both in the emotional effects of physical costs of war and in the financial burden that comes with physical costs.
When her husband came home she had to become a caretaker of him and a mediator between him and other people, especially the children. Now that her husband is back she is having difficulties keeping up with the new demands on her role as a wife. She wants to be there for him while he is struggling through his issues, but he does not want to comfort that she is offering. She also needs support from him for what she went through (Knobloch & Theiss, 2012). There was one scene when she was talking with her two daughters about their father and why he was behaving the way he was. She was trying to explain behavior that she did not even really understand herself, but she tried to support and understand him even when it became very difficult to do. In Knobloch and Theiss’ article, they say that partners must manage strong emotions and try to share their experiences. During the reunion period when the soldier comes home it is very difficult to do those things and the partner must be able to deal with it, and it may be very difficult, like it is for the wife in this
Military wives are perceived as stay at home moms that sit at home all day and take care of the kids. My views on the wives of soldiers is that they are pretty much single parents while their husbands are deployed. The wives are expected to keep the house up and running by doing the housework, cooking, cleaning and caring for the children. People on the outside looking in may think that all of the wives are unemployed and living off of their husbands. The wives are forced to deal with all the duties that, are they are supposed to share as a couple. In situations like this the wife may feel extremely overwhelmed, but the additional workload along with the work that she was doing before their husband was deployed. The conduction
For over 20 years, the Lord's Resistance Army has been at war with the government of Uganda, causing a civil war. The Army's Rebel Groups, have attacked small villages, resulting in thousands of innocent deaths, and the abduction of children to fight with the rebels. In order to maintain these organizations, the Rebel Groups are faced with the difficult task of recruiting individuals. With limited available resources, the Rebel Groups cannot offer any appealing incentives to their recruits, but require complete loyalty (Vermeij, 2009). A child's innocence, trust, and blind obedience make them desirable soldiers. For the Rebel Groups in South Africa, children are therefore strategically used as pawns in combat. Children under the age of 18 make up 60% of the Lord's Resistance Army (Vermeij), and “world-wide, 300 000 children are currently used as child soldiers” (Derluyn et. al). The purpose of my paper, is to explore the reasons why child soldiers remain loyal to their leaders and what measures these authorities take to maintain the power and control in their societies. A stolen innocence morphed into immorality, young boys are turned from child to monster, “we were dangerous, and brainwashed to kill” (Beah, 2007). What motivates these children to fall into such savage behaviour, and how does the Lord's Resistance Army motivate and control its members? Simply put, the socialization of the boys plays an essential role in creating the allegiance and conformity that is most prevalent amongst these Rebel Groups. Therefore socialization is a crucial tactic used by leaders to benefit and improve the army. The role of a strong authority figure for a child, the primary socialization of children, and the process of socializat...
Child Soldiers: The use of children in the military. Child Soldiers have three different roles in armed conflict. They can take a direct part in hostilities, or they can be used for support, such as sexual slaves, lookouts, messengers, and spies. Also, they can be used in the political aspect of war. Because many children have been physically or mentally damaged by their participation in armed conflict, children should not have any involvement in any armed conflict and should be removed indefinitely from warfare. Every child has the right to go to school, free from violence. Children have been used in the military for hundreds of years.