Sources of Risk and Resilience among Adolescents from Military Families

Abstract

Most of the extant research examining the impact of military life on adolescents from military families has focused on various sources of risk that negatively influence military-connected youths’ well-being. As such, the resilience factors that contribute to military-connected youth adjustment to military life are currently understudied, particularly in Canada. Therefore, the goal of the present study was to explore the perceptions of adolescents from Canadian Armed Forces families with regard to the sources of risk and resilience that affect their well-being. A sample of N = 178 adolescents (108 females, 70 males) between the ages of 14–19 years (M age 16.44 years, SD = 1.59) from families of Canadian Regular Force service members responded to open-ended questions about the challenges and opportunities of military life they believed they encounter in comparison to adolescents from nonmilitary families. The results from thematic analyses revealed that these military-connected youth perceived enduring multiple unique challenges related to social disruptions, lack of sense of belonging, and feelings of distress during relocations and lack of parental availability and feelings of concern during parental deployment. Two themes on the sources of resilience emerged from the analyses, including access to military-sponsored programs and services, and travel opportunities resulting from the military parents’ career. The findings are discussed in terms of the ways to help adolescents adjust to military life challenges.