Psychological and social effects of military parent deployment on children

¶ … Deployment on Military Families

Cause (Deployment) Effect (Stress on Families / Children)

The stress on military families when the father or mother is deployed -- whether the deployment is to a war zone or to another place -- can be very intense and psychologically stressful. There is a great deal of literature on what military families experience before, during, and after deployment, and this paper provides several peer-reviewed articles that discuss and assess the situations that military families must deal with during deployment. Thesis: families left at home when a military parent is deployed face social and psychological issues that do not necessarily end when that parent returns from deployment; however, there are strategies to reduce the stress once the parent returns home from the deployment.

The Literature -- Psychological Adjustment for Children

The psychological adjustments that children must make -- especially children with "…preexisting psychological conditions" such as depression or anxiety -- is significant and is being carefully studied by psychologists. An article in the peer-reviewed Journal of Clinical Psychology explains that having a parent sent to "an active combat zone" with no exact date set for returning to the family "…may rank as one of the most stressful events of childhood" (Lincoln, et al., 2008, p. 984). Additional stress may be placed on that child because the parent that remains at home may be "compromised by his or her own distress and uncertainty" by what may happen to the deployed person, Lincoln continues (984).

In order to fully understand what effects a family endures when there is separation due to a military obligation to deploy there must first be an understanding of the "unique culture of military life," Lincoln explains on page 985. First of all the military culture is faced with more than just separation when a parent deploys; in fact there is always the fear that the deployed parent could be injured or even killed. Also, in order to understand the military culture one must be familiar with the "cycle of deployment," which has five very distinct phases, according to Lincoln (985).

Those five phases include: a) "predeployment" (extends from the announcement that the parent will be deployed to the actual departure); b) deployment (from leaving to returning); c) sustainment (keeping the home going); d) redeployment; and e) post-deployment (Lincoln, 985). This model of what a family in the military comes to expect became a lot less predictable during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts in terms of the amount of time a parent is deployed and how often that parent will be deployed. Those wars created the need for "multiple deployments in a relatively short period of time," Lincoln writes, and hence, military families faced even more uncertainty and ambiguity -- and children felt the stress more severely than other family members (985).

The cause is always the same -- a military dad or mom is sent off the war -- but for children, the stressful and psychological effects vary according to the age of the child. On page 987 Lincoln cites a number of scholarly research papers that identify the effects on children of different ages. An infant will respond to the sadness and anxiety that the caregiver experiences when the spouse is sent off to war; that infant may become "…more irritable and unresponsive" and will not sleep as well and may spend more time crying than previously (Lincoln, 987). A toddler may be more clingy and dependent on the remaining parent and regress to certain behaviors "that they have previously outgrown," Lincoln continues.

Preschool children show the effects of deployment as well. Like toddlers, they may revert to behaviors they have previously outgrown; those behaviors include becoming "more aggressive and demanding" and they may "cry for attention" and wet the bed more often than perhaps they previously had done. School aged children may show a lack of attention to their schoolwork and may display "…emotional dysregulation, worry, and sleep difficulties," Lincoln explains. Adolescents sometimes react to a parents' deployment by becoming "…angry and aloof," and they may "act out, or lose interest in their usual activities" (Lincoln, 987).

The Literature -- Reducing Stress When the Military Parent Returns

Ramon Hinojosa and colleagues point to the same problems that Swenson wrote about, that is the issues that can appear during reintegration of families when deployed parents return home. Hinojosa asserts that a way to smooth out those stressful reunions is to maintain "…Open and clear communication" during the deployment (Hinojosa, 2012, p. 191). In one study referenced by Hinojosa parents that were absent from home due to military deployment -- but who "communicated regularly, and shared information about daily activities with children" -- were able to maintain "parent-child intimacy" and reported positive and satisfying relationships (191).

Granted, not all deployed military personnel are able to communicate regularly with families back home, but when they are able to keep up communication, either by email or on the phone, family dynamics are much smoother when the parent returns home. The focus of this article in the peer-reviewed journal Military Medicine is also upon miscommunication and how it can cause "lingering anger and resentment" (Hinojosa, 195).

In conclusion, fortunately for active duty military personnel the war in Iraq is over as far as Americans are concerned, and President Obama has indicated that troops in Afghanistan are being brought home soon as well. But there will always be some soldiers sent overseas for various assignments, and thus, there will always be military families left without a parent. Given that predictable reality as a cause, there will always be effects in families (especially with children) that need to be addressed in further research.