Promoting Resilience in Military Children and Adolescents

Children and adolescents of military families (military children) face numerous challenges that their civilian counterparts do not experience. Stressors are particularly intense now related to sustained military deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. These stressors including the frequent deployments of parents, the associated fear of losing a parent, the move of remaining family members “closer to home” while the active duty parent is deployed, and the financial stress of only having one person work with no second job, all test the resilience of the military child and his or her family. With a much smaller military than the United States (U.S.) has had in the past, the onus of protecting the nation falls to highly trained and effective but less numerous forces. This translates into more frequent deployments for many.