Middle Childhood (5-12 years)

66 elementary-school children (whose fathers were absent as part of service in the Canadian military forces) and their mothers participated in a study examining youth coping methods, maternally-perceived social support, and child adjustment and behavior.

In studying work and family life as overlapping domains, of interest is the impact of father absence created by work requirements.

Some Navy families are subject to unusual stress in that the active duty parent may be deployed for several months at a time.

118 Navy and 103 civilian children and adolescents who were psychiatrically hospitalized over a three-year period participated in a study to examine deployment as a risk factor for hospitalization. 60% of Navy youth who were hospitalized had a Navy parent whose job required long-term deployment.

Children of incarcerated parents are exposed to factors that place them at risk for delinquency.

This study, like numerous others, found parental absence to be associated with problematic behavior on behalf of children.

The decade of the 1980s witnessed more than a doubling in the number of incarcerated individuals.