Geographic Relocation Frequency, Resilience, and Military Adolescent Behavior

Frequent relocations have historically been viewed negatively and are perceived to lead to aberrant behavior. Military adolescents are a highly mobile population with a highly variable number of relocations. This study assessed parental perceptions of military adolescents’ conduct and behavior in the context of relocation experience. Parents of military adolescents were surveyed for their children’s history of conduct and behavior, with 179 completed surveys being returned from geographically separate sites. The average number of relocations experienced by the adolescents was 4.89. Parental perceptions of relocations improved with the number of relocations experienced (p < 0.05). As more relocations were experienced, children’s behavior improved (p < 0.05), when controlling for age. The data suggested that relocation frequency was a more predictive measure of improved parental perceptions and decreased aberrant behavior. Data from this study suggests that relocation frequency may be a more critical factor in resilience development than the actual number of relocations experienced.