There and Back Again: How Parental Experiences Affect Children’s Adjustments in the Course of Military Deployments

Abstract

As a consequence of various causes, numerous children are confronted with parental separation. By following families in the course of military deployments, this study aimed at enhancing knowledge on temporary father—child separation. Data were part of a longitudinal study of military families and were collected among Dutch service members and their partners before, during, and after a deployment to Bosnia or Afghanistan. Results revealed that the great majority of the children adapted quite well to the separation and reunion. Furthermore, the general well-being of the children, the mothers, and the fathers in the mission area was positively related. Unlike separation characteristics, maternal well-being was predictive of children’s adjustment in the course of paternal deployment. Hence, the findings underline the importance of helping spouses cope with the absences of service members as it increases the chances that children will also be doing well in the course of parental absence.

The Deployment Life Study: Longitudinal Analysis of Military Families Across the Deployment Cycle

“…Families were assessed at four-month intervals over a three-year period for a total of nine waves for Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps families and seven waves for Navy families. 2 Second, whereas several previous studies have included some combination of service members, spouses, and children (e.g., Mazur, 2011;Andres and Moelker, 2011), the Deployment Life Study is one of the few studies to integrate reports from service members, spouses, and teens (within the same families) to allow a more complete perspective of the associations between deployment and families' military integration. Third, the data include both standard, comparable measures of military integration used in other studies (e.g., the Defense Manpower Data Center's [DMDC's] Status of Forces Survey), but also an item that is far less commonly used, which assesses teens' military career aspirations.…”

Boundary Ambiguity and Ambivalence in Military Family Reintegration

“…Sayers et al (2009) surveyed almost 200 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans receiving services at a VA hospital and found that 75% reported some frequency of family readjustment problems (e.g., disagreements about responsibilities, feeling like a guest in one's own home, a troubled relationship with spouse or child), with 66% reporting that these problems occurred weekly. Another study found that only 25% of the children of the mothers surveyed had difficulties with reunion (Andres & Moelker, 2011). However, this optimistic finding should be considered with caution since the length of deployments in this study averaged around five months and the authors failed to define the duration of "reunion.…”

“…In terms of its relationship to family dynamics, simply put, the lower the rank, the less income for the service member and family. Andres and Moelker (2011) report that higher rank was associated with more positive reports of parent-child separation during deployment. Lower rank has been associated with greater marital distress, possibly due to its other associations with lower pay, lower educational attainment, and younger partners with less marital and family experience (J. R. Anderson et al, 2011).…”

“…Research is mixed regarding the effect of deployment type upon family functioning during and after deployments. While a few studies show no relationship between service member combat exposure (i.e., the type of deployment), child adjustment (Andres & Moelker, 2011;Glenn et al, 2002), and other family outcomes, the majority of research suggests otherwise. Conceptual literature identifies combat-related deployments as a significant source of additional family stress and as being associated with greater risk and vulnerability in military families compared to those deployments that occur during peace-time (Cozza & Lieberman, 2007;Lincoln, Swift, & Shorteno-Fraser, 2008;MacLean & Elder Jr, 2007).…”

“…Families can often surprise service members with how well they are faring during deployment, which then affects their functioning during reintegration. Service members may underestimate how well or adaptive their spouses and children are during their absence (Andres & Moelker, 2011), which could presumably heighten the disconnect between their expectations and reality upon their return. This situation could easily lead to conflict if the service member desires to resume his or her pre-deployment roles (Gambardella, 2008).…”