Minimizing the Impact of Deployment Separation on Military Children: Stages, Current Preventive Efforts, and System Recommendations

Discusses factors that most influence the adjustment of the child to parent absence in military families. Interactional patterns between family members that affect children (preschoolers to adolescents) during the predeployment, deployment, and postdeployment stages are delineated. Preventive measures that have been found to be helpful for parents to use to minimize the negative effects of parent absence are given. How the military could further minimize the impact of deployment separation on children is examined.