Advocating for America's Military Children: Considering the Impact of Parental Combat Deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan

Abstract

Military dependent children and adolescents have faced remarkable adversity during the last 12 years of war. Although we know most military children and families are resilient, research addressing military child and family strengths and challenges in peace and war has shown that military youth fared better than their civilian counterparts in areas such as self‐regulation, academic performance, and emotional well‐being. However, many of these studies occurred prior to current combat activities of the past 10‐plus years with families experiencing repeated military parental deployments to war. It is important for family court professionals to understand that being resilient does not mean that these important families are invulnerable. In this article, the journey of a military family is described through the eyes of its teenage son, Ben. Key Points for the Family Court Community The story of a significantly affected military family The effect of relationship restructuring in military families (separation, divorce, changed family members) Unique military child and adolescent culture Advocacy efforts on behalf military children Relevance of the issues to family court professionals