Analysis Paper on Veterans Sociology

SOCIOLOGY

Sociology: Analysis Paper- Veterans

The following critical analysis is the selected article “Examination of Veterans Fathers’; Parenting and their Adolescent Children’s Substance Use in the United States.” The article discusses substance use among those adolescent children whose fathers were in the military and did not get time to talk to their children about the risks of substance use. The study compares non-military veteran fathers and their children to check adolescent substance use (Lipari et al., 2017). The results showed that higher rates of children of military veteran fathers were involved in smoking and nonmedical prescribed drugs compared to lesser percentages of children of non-military veteran fathers. It was a clear deduction that parental involvement, highlighted by parental capital and social capital theory, is vital for building a healthy father-child or parent-child relationship for protecting children against substance abuse and similar social, emotional, and psychological harms.

According to homecoming theory, military veterans become a traveler from their hometowns to the war base and back again to their homes (Ahern et al., 2015). However, when they return to their home after having experienced the stress, anxiety, pain, depression, and suffering of war, the separation offers them a substantial difference between their expectations and reality. They undergo the challenge of returning to normal lives with their family and children and cannot connect sometimes. The transition from an army person to usual civilian encounters great transition difficulties.

A similar pattern might be observed with the veteran fathers among clinical populations who might have been affected by emotional numbing and distorted psychological functioning when they return home with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Lipari et al., 2017). In such circumstances, the fathers might not be able to act warmly toward their children or even be concerned about what is happening in their child’s life. The protective element that is the basis of parenting behavior could be missing. The fundamental fatherly involvement that mainly comprises positive activities with children, receptivity, sensitivity, affection, and control would not be offered by disturbed veterans, not conducive to promoting positive child development (Lipari et al., 2017).

The social capital theory states that the relationship between individuals should be a productive process that encompasses resources as a means of associating them (Thomas & Gupta, 2021). The societal effect is the sum of the available networking resources between two individuals or a greater number of persons within a group or society. Emotional wellbeing is a crucial indicator of health, which applies to veterans and their children in the selected article’s case. Investing more emotional resources in building relations between father and child, especially with the help of positive engagements like helping with homework or talking about a video game they like, could abstain the adolescents from substance abuse or at least delay it (Lipari et al., 2017).

The analysis could be applied to one of the persons I know in an environment relevant to advanced clinical practice. His name is Bob, age 67 years. He only had one son, and his wife had passed away due to a chronic illness soon after his deployment in the army. He had to send his son to a boarding school when he was out of the state at work. When he returned, there was scarce interaction between them since they had met only an hour or two at the boarding school meeting room, and Bob went home alone. Bob was already suffering from homecoming transition from military to civilian life, especially when he had to watch the suffering of war where he was posted. Although he said he was trying his best to not reflect his inner, psychological and emotional disconnection from his son and kept his meetings as open and cheerful as possible, the distance had been dragged long enough between them that Bob could not imagine that his son has already fallen victim to drug abuse. He was not among healthy friends and gradually got caught in a bad reputation in the school. Bob learned about this when he received a call from his son’s school after eight years of getting him into the boarding school. Bob’s son was seven when he was first sent to this school and is now fifteen. It is the exact adolescence age, which has been discussed in the selected article. Bob’s son had to be sent to a rehabilitation center, after which Bob experienced severe depression and had no one at home to take care of him. Bob was moved to social service and is now being treated by informed and resourceful social workers with effective interventions. He was under the impression of extreme self-blame that he had not given due attention to his only child, especially when he had no mother to look after him in his absence. Bob, a clinical population of veterans undergoing PTSD with a weak relationship with his child, had a weak parenting behavior and strong family stressors (Lipari et al., 2017). The geographic separation contributed to his child’s elevated rate of substance abuse as there was no positive engagement in his child’s life after the trauma he had also gone through, such as the loss of his mother and being several miles away from his father, his only child. Bob’s son felt lonely and found solace in his friends’ company, which he did not know at the beginning was not good. On the other hand, Bob might have felt devastated that he could have felt fear of public stigma and negative repute when his child would receive mental health services (Lipari et al., 2017).

The advanced clinical practice is suggested in the selected article as well under the name TRICARE Management Activity (2018). It could be used for Bob and his son. Bob could use ‘mental health therapeutic services,’ and his son could be treated under ‘residential substance use disorder treatment.’ However, the changes in treatment could be suggested better by approved social workers and related doctors in the field after running intensive outpatient programs, psychotherapies that work or do not work, group therapies, family therapies, medication-assisted programs, etc.