How Deployment Effects Families and Children

¶ … Military Deployment Impacts Families Families are social structures that, like all structures, require stability and solid foundations to serve their purpose (Joshi, Connelly, Rosenberg, 2014). If the purpose of the family is to provide shelter and support for the growth and development of the individual members of the family as active participants of society, a family that suffers from departures of significant or substantial role players/infrastructural supporters can have a negative effect on the remaining members and in particularly children.

Such is the case among military families, where military deployments create a void within the family system dynamic; i.e., while the military parent is away on military service, the house becomes essentially a single-parent home, with ramifications for both the parent and the children. This paper will discuss the issue of the effect of military deployment on the family.

Effects While it is necessary that military deployments be enacted in order to support the defense of the country, the main effect of military deployment on the family is that it essentially obliges the remaining parent in the house to fulfill a dual-role situation, essentially acting as both mother and father while the spouse is away on active duty. Thus, there is a trade-off in terms of how society is concerned.

On the one hand, society is obliged to defend itself and protect its interests abroad; on the other hand, it is obliged to support the family infrastructure, as the family, solidly situated, supports the overall growth and reinforcement of society. The issue at hand is that when a spouse is deployed for upwards of 30 days at a time (and frequently much longer) it adds undue stress to the family left behind.

For instance, the parent who is not deployed now must act as the leader of a single-parent house, responsible for raising children, dealing with finances, and managing the overall household. This can be a major shift in responsibilities that would not be necessary had deployment not occurred. The result of the shift is a substantial increase in stress for the parent left at home.

However, the stress that the parent who is left to manage the family at home undergoes is not even the worst part of the situation, according to researchers Lester and Flake (2013). They assert that it is the post-deployment period that is really the hardest part -- when the returning spouse must re-integrate him or herself back into the civilian lifestyle and make adjustments to the changes seen in spouse, children and society back home.

Lester and Flake (2013) state that the most stressful part of military deployments for families is not the leaving of one spouse but rather the returning: "service members, having come home from war, must be reintegrated into families whose internal rhythms have changed and where children have taken on new roles" (p. 121).

The issue of re-integration is one that concerns the returning spouse coping with changes that occurred while he or she was absent as well as the individuals of the family who remained at home coping with the changes of the returning spouse/parent.

As the civilian and the military culture are vastly different in terms of behavior, norms, expectations, roles, discipline, and outlook, confronting these changes can be extremely difficult for all involved and can add stress onto stress already existing as a result of the initial fact of deployment in the first place. Finally, the effect of military life on children is important to consider, as children are essentially the torch-bearers of the future generation.

It is they who must lead the way in the future and carve out a place for themselves and their families in society as they grow, develop and mature.

Yet, if they are improperly developed or if they experience early childhood trauma as a result of the stress associated with a parent's deployment and the difficulties related to deployment and post-deployment issues (whether they are financial stress on the parents' part that is demonstrated in the home or whether it is the issue of the difficulty of re-integration that impacts the children), the likelihood of children being able to perform the role of mature adult later in life is threatened and possibly severely handicapped.

At least, it can be another obstacle in the home and one that has to be addressed as all members work to overcome the issue of deployment. As Joshi, Connelly and Rosenberg (2014) point out, stability is essential in the well-formation of a child, and in a military-deployment type situation, stability and consistency are the first casualties. Conclusion In conclusion, the problem of military deployment and its effect on the family is a serious one that should be discussed.