Children of the military need our support!
I started Fit for Life because I want to give children of the military the chance to learn how to cope with the stress of having an absent parent – which is the single most disruptive event a child can live through. I know what it is like to have a parent sent to war with no certainty of return.
Children of the military need their self-esteem bolstered by becoming strong and goal-oriented. They need our help to learn how to come to terms with emotional strain, distress and anxiety. They need to have something to look forward to.
We can offer support and encouragement. We can help them make better choices by introducing exercise and good nutrition as a way to cope with anxiety. We can teach them how to walk through fear, set goals and achieve these goals.
A Study from the RAND Corporation:
Children in military families suffer from more emotional difficulties compared to other American youths
Children in military families may suffer from more emotional and behavioral difficulties when compared to other American youths, with older children and girls struggling the most when a parent is deployed overseas, according to a new RAND Corporation study, published online by the journal Pediatrics.
RAND researchers say the study was intended to provide a broad snapshot of the challenges facing military children and their families, particularly during deployment. In 2009, about 2 million U.S. children had a parent in either the active or reserve component of the military.
Researchers found that across all age groups, children from military families reported significantly higher levels of emotional difficulties than children in the general population. In addition, about one-third of the military children surveyed reported symptoms of anxiety, somewhat higher than the percentage reported in other studies of children.
The types of problems that children reported varied by age and gender. Older youths had more difficulties with school and more problem behaviors such as fighting, while younger children reported more symptoms of anxiety, according to the study. Girls had fewer problems in school and with friends, but reported more anxiety than boys.
The longer the period of time a parent had been deployed over the previous three years, the greater the chance that a child reported difficulties related to deployment such as taking on more responsibilities at home.
The impact of more cumulative months of deployment was more pronounced among girls, particularly during the reintegration period once a parent returns home. Researchers say this may be linked to girls taking on additional household duties when a parent is deployed and issues related to connecting emotionally with an absent parent, who is usually a father.
Researchers were somewhat surprised to find that older children reported so many problems related to a parental deployment. Earlier studies that examined military children focused on the problems experienced by younger children.
About the Survey:
About 57 percent of the children studied had a parent in the Army, 20 percent in the Air Force and 17 percent in the Navy. The remainder had parents in the Marines or Coast Guard. About 63 percent of the parents were in the active component, with the rest in the National Guard or Reserve. The study found no significant differences among children based on what service a parent served in or whether they were a part of the active or reserve component of the military. About 95 percent of the children surveyed had experienced at least one parental deployment over the three years before the start of the study and nearly 40 percent had a parent deployed at the time of the interview. Ages of the children ranged from 11 to 17 and 47 percent were girls.
Source: RAND Corporation
