Meeting the Wartime Needs of Military Children and Adolescents

Although most mental health clinicians receive some training in child and adolescent mental health, few have a clear understanding of the needs of children in the unique circumstances that accompany the combat exposure and deployment experiences of military parents. Children are often the unseen and unheard individuals in the family, and their emotional reactions and needs may go unrecognized or misunderstood by the adult health care community. The children of military service members constitute a large and integral part of our diverse military communities. Although some literature examines the general health and well-being of military children and families (Castro, Adler, & Britt, 2006), much less research has specifically focused on the impact of parental combat exposure and its consequences. Such exposure directly affects children through parental combat deployment (single, multiple, or extended), parental combat injury, posttraumatic illness, or parental death (Cozza, Chun, & Polo, 2005). Because empirical studies of clinical interventions and treatment with military children and families affected by parental combat deployment have not been done, clinical guidance must be sought from the application of approaches with other populations as well as an understanding of developmental principles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)