Minimizing The Impact of Deployment Separation On Military Children: Stages, Current Preventive Efforts, and System Recommendations

Periodic and prolonged parent absences affect most military families. The impact of these separations on children may be profound. The authors, from their experience as military mental health professionals, discuss those factors which most influence the adjustment of the child to parent absence. They also delineate interactional patterns between family members that affect children during the pre-deployment, deployment, and post-deployment stages. Preventive measures which the authors have found to be helpful for parents to use to minimize the negative effects of parent absence are given. Finally, the authors explore what the military is and could be doing to minimize the impact of deployment separation on children.