At the end of 2013, there was over 1.4 million active duty U.S. military personnel, of which approximately half have a spouse and/or children (Department of Defense, 2014). Once deployment orders are received, these servicemen and women must say goodbye to their loved ones for up to fifteen months. During this time of separation, these families will go through dramatic changes in an effort to make up for the absence of a spouse and/or parent. The deployment of military personnel adversely affects their families by causing negative emotional and/or behavioral changes, by continuously altering the framework of the family dynamic, and by increasing the risk factors for divorce upon their post-deployment reintegration. Deployment of a parent and/or spouse can cause a myriad of behavioral and/or emotional changes in the family members at home. The stress of deployment on the spouse at home can cause mental health issues that have a negative impact on their relationship with their child(ren) and their parenting practices (Swenson & Wolff, 2011). Subsequently, a spouse left to parent and carry on alone for months on end may begin to feel the weight of their compounded responsibilities. This heaviness, added to the fear for their spouse’s safety and the heartache of loneliness, can be felt in such a deep way that depression, insomnia, and anxiety lead them to needing medication and/or therapy. In the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, Flake, Davis,
To summarize (Kaplow, Layne, Saltztman, Cozza & Pynoos, 2013, p. 322-340) this article looks at how grief through exposure to loss due to combat fights, loss of fellow unit members, or the loss of a service member can affect a service member or military family during deployment and reintegration phases. The article goes on to discuss some of the stresses that can increase due to deployments such as martial conflicts, abuse or neglect, and mental health problems stemming from both spouses or children. More military children function equally as well as their civilian counterparts, except during times of deployment where they experience more emotional and behavioral problems. The article looks at three key areas Separation distress characterized as missing the deceased. Existential/Identity Distress finding meaning or fulfillment, or taking on roles left by the deceased. Circumstance-Related Distress characterized as emotional pain brought on by how the deceased passed. The article furthermore looks into how the age of the military children plays into their separation distress. Followed by their existential/identity Distress may be disrupted by new
This article supports my topic because it provides way to cope with family separation and stress which are psychological effects of deployment.
There is a large amount of military families around the world. About Forty- three percent of active military members have children (Website). These children face so many challenges and struggles in their life while having a parent in the military. Children of Active duty military members exhibit anxiety, depression and stress just as much as the service members and spouses experience. For instance the children experience going through multiple deployments, long separations, frequent moves and awkward reunions when their parents return home from deployment. Even more so if the parent has been physically or mentally traumatized from overseas.
“Studies of OEF/OIF combat veterans have revealed that rates of PTSD are higher in deployed soldiers compared to non-deployed soldiers (Buchanan, C. et al., p.743).” Unfortunately, in some cases, military spouses are not fully aware of the symptoms for PTSD. Some feel powerless and unsure on what to do when symptoms begin damaging their relationship with their love one. Broadly speaking, military couples who are challenged with a deployment suffer more stress which may lead to PTSD when they do not know how to obtain support when needed, have lower income, and are not satisfied with the military and it's missions. Other factors that may dictate the degree of stress for military couples facing a deployment are income, education, and rank. Couples who have had prior military experience such as having military parents or serving a number of years preceding a deployment may adapt well to the demands of military life. Overall, relationship satisfaction may result if couples possess excellent communication and marital quality. Greater emphasis on military assistance has been to shown to reduce stress in couples, but spouses who perceive the military as being “less concerned” for them and their love one usually experience higher levels of stress. Also, unenthusiastic emotions toward the mission in the middle east can be related to greater stress in couples. “Negative attitudes toward the U.S. Missions in Iraq and Afghanistan were associated with more stress (Allen, E.
“Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Materials and methods included “a convenience sample of 130 participants from military installations in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States” All were female, age 18 and older with an active duty classification. The authors used a transactional system of analysis using a perceived stress scale, PSS-10. Further, a once only study interval, with no trials involved. Consequently, the authors sought a form survey and used a t-test in determination. The authors’ claimed construct validity was achieved by supporting material result with higher stress levels in deployed serviceman spouses (p < .001). Somatization also significantly higher in spouses of deployed
Military children are in a league of their own, and at very young ages are thrown into situations of great stress. Approximately 1.2 million children live in the U.S. Military families (Kelly. 2003) and at least 700,000 of them have had at least one parent deployed (Johnson et al. 2007). Every child handles a deployment differently, some may regress in potty training, and others may become extremely aggressive. Many different things can happen, in most cases when a parent deploys and the child becomes difficult to handle, it can cause a massive amount of stress on the parent that is not deployed as well as added stress on the parent who is deployed. There are three stages of a deployment, pre-deployment, deployment, and reintegration,
An article titled "How Deployment Stress Affects Children and Families: Research Findings" estimated that “by the end of 2008, 1.7 million American Service Members had served in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF).” Each person is different. They experience and interpret situations unique to their personality that varies depending on the person, but war produces the same problems for members of the nuclear family. War creates a cloud of worry and anxiety. “Parents of [military personnel] often have misgivings (Lediaev).” These reservations and
Drawing on relational dialectic theory, Sahlstein, Maguire, and Timmerman interviewed 50 Army wives whose husbands were either deployed at that time or recently returned to discuss their experiences before, during, and after their husbands’ most recent deployment. Through qualitative analyses of 2000 transcribed pages of data, they identified three contradictions with marriage and deployment; uncertainty-certainty during predeployment, autonomy-connection during the deployment, and openness-closedness during reunion. For the most part, they discovered that during their husbands predeployment they experienced high levels of uncertainty because they did not know what to expect. During their husband’s deployment their levels of uncertainty decreased,
Deployment and integration are one the greatest challenges military families and children have to face on a daily basis. When a family member deploys or reintegrates within the entire family, it not only affects the service member but it affects the entire family. Deployment can often lead to families and children, experiencing a negative mental health outcomes and compromised wellbeing. Bello (2015) found that most families and children (80.5% required less than one month to adjust to the return of their deployed parent (Bello, 2015). Accordingly, the families and children are often quick to adjust to having their family member back in the home. Interestingly, discoveries are surprising in light of the fact that when contrasted to another family, the discoveries are definitely unique. Boberiene (2014) found that three out of every four families feel that reintegration after the first three months is the most stressful phase of a deployment (Boberiene, 2014). This is because the family experiences many emotions while the member is away.
family under nomadic conditions, and many times copes with the stress of surviving on his or her own. (Alt & Stone, 1991, p. 11) A military spouse must struggle
What I learned in class that enriched my learning would be when we discussed the demands and stressors of families impacted by military service deployment. I can understand how difficult this may be because of the time being separated away from the service member. Also, the worriedness and fear that goes on if their loved one will return back home safely from combat. These stressors not only affect the family, but the service member as well. Moreover, it was interesting to learn about the redeployment and post-deployment stages that family members and the veteran go through. I learned that when the service member returns, he/she might still be adjusting to coming home from combat (Asbury & Martin, 2012). Symptoms include feeling more detached,
One way to accomplish this is through answering research questions related to military family life, such as “How do multiple deployments, multiple moves and other military lifestyle factors affect the development of attachment in military children?” and “What is the long-term impact on military children who have experienced multiple deployments, relocations and other life-disrupting events associated with military life?” As America continues to send service members to the Middle East in the midst of the longest military conflict in its history, gaining an understanding of the long-term impact on this generation of military children is crucial to aid in the development of programs and resources with the hope of ameliorating the challenges they have encountered. Additionally, the answers to these research questions may assist in identifying protective and risk factors and increase positive outcomes for these children as they grow into
When a parent is deployed to serve at war, a child faces many hardships in his well-being. The main problem is that early children face many social, emotional, and physical problems when a parent goes to war and returns with a health issue. Children under age of five are developing negative behaviors, for example Home Front Alert: The Risk Facing Young Children In Military Families states that “children in military families with a deployed parent may experience stress, anxiety, and difficult coping, as well as academic problems” (Murphey, 2013, p. 4). This reveals that absent parents are not fulfilling the child’s cognitive needs, which plays an important in their health. Thus, children
Divorced spouses’ subsystem can impact the entire family in a positive or negative manner. For the positive effects, we can see that these couples that tend to support each other are able to really act as civilized adults and move on. This is generally because of the “commitment to the child(ren), by years of common history and/or friends, or genuine concern for each other (Hall, 2016, p.123)”. When the positive effects occur, one can see healthy relationships built with each other, the child(ren), and the new partner as well. This allows for the child(ren) to get the proper discipline and guidance that is very much needed in children today. On the flip side of this the negative effects can be caused by “revenge, distrust, or anger (Hall, 2016, p.123)”. This can cause tension among the ex-couple, family, friends, child(ren), or even the new relationship. This makes it very difficult for the child(ren) involved to adjust to their new-found lifestyle. Another challenge here is when the military member lives some distance from the child(ren) home; if the member lives