When a Parent Goes to War

The nature of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with an all-volunteer military, has led to multiple and extended deployments for active-duty, reserve, and National Guard troops. One of the invisible effects of war is the impact of prolonged deployments on the well-being of children in militaryfamilies. Until now, there has not been a comprehensive study of sufficient size to fully examine the effects of parental deployment on older children.

The first results from a large, longitudinal study finds that children from militaryfamilies experience significant emotional and behavioral problems when a parent is deployed overseas. (The full text of the Pediatrics article is available here for free.) The Rand Corporation study includes families from all branches of the military. Fifteen-hundred children ages 11 to 17 and their non-deployed parents are to be surveyed three times over the course of one year. Nearly all the children (95%) had experienced at least one parental deployment over the past three years and nearly 40% percent had a parent deployed at the time of the interview.

All the families were recruited from those who applied for the National MilitaryFamily Association's Operation Purple camp--a free program held for children ofmilitary service members at 63 sites across the country. The mission of theOperation Purple Camp is to help children cope with the stress of war and a parent's deployment.

Some findings from the study: 

• Compared to children in the civilian population, the military children reported higher rates of emotional and behavioral problems.
• Older teens, and girls of all ages, reported significantly more problems at home, school, and with peers.
• The longer a parent was deployed, the greater the problems experienced by a child.
• The children of non-deployed caretakers with mental health problems had greater difficulties.
• Children who did not live on a military base while their parent was gone also experienced more problems.
• No significant differences were found between the service branches or between active-duty (63%)and Reserve/Guard families (37%).

Some limitations of the study: 

• The study may not be representative of all military families because it included only those who applied to the Operation Purple Camp program.
• Marine families were under-represented.
• There were few families that had deployed mothers and caretaker fathers.
• There were fewer families from the lower enlisted ranks.

It's not hard to imagine that children of deployed parents have problems adjusting to their parents' absence. Anxiety over the deployed parent's safety, more responsibilities at home, increased stress on the non-deployed parent, and the loss of daily support by the absent parent can all affect a child's adjustment.

New stressors may emerge when the deployed parent returns home. Family role changes during the parent's absence need to be renegotiated. Families are affected when a service member suffers from head trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or depression as a result of their combat experiences. Marital problems, domestic violence, and child abuse becomes more common. The return may be temporary with little time as a family before the parent starts preparing for re-deployment.