There are about 1.2 million U.S. children who have an active-duty military parent, and since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in October 2001, more than 700,000 kids have lived through a parent being deployed overseas at least once.
“This is the longest conflict ever,” said Marty McCarty, executive director of Military Community Youth Ministries in Colorado Springs. “If you’re 13 years old, that’s more than half your life, and you don’t remember pre- 9/11. Kids are actually thinking this is normal, to have a part-time parent.”
The unprecedented number of deployments has sparked new research into how military families are dealing with the stress, with particular emphasis on the behavior of children, many of whom have been separated from the deployed parent for most of their lives.
“There’s going to be an avalanche of (studies). There is so much work underway,” said Shelley Wadsworth, director of the Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University in Indiana.
The results are expected to change how experts work with military kids and at-home spouses.
Already, TriWest Healthcare Alliance — which treats military families in 21 Western states — has boosted the number of behavioral-health providers to 20,000 from about 4,000 four years ago.
Further, 40 national experts will meet in Washington, D.C., next week to discuss the results of the largest of the new studies and work to develop a five-year plan to meet the needs of military families.
That study, conducted by the RAND Corp., looked at the well-being of 1,500 military children, ages 11 to 17, by surveying the kids and the at-home parent.
Girls experienced more anxiety than boys but had fewer difficulties with school and friends. Younger kids reported more anxiety, but older ones had more trouble with school and problem behaviors such as fighting.
Joyce Raezer, executive director of the National Military Family Association, which commissioned the study, was surprised by the impact of multiple deployments.
“I would have predicted the going-and-coming would be more disruptive for a child,” she said. “But research showed that the cumulative length of time gone was the most important indicator if (a child) was having problems.”
Another study, published last month in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, examined the complex links between cumulative deployment, children’s behavior and the functioning of the at-home parent.
It looked at 171 families with children ages 6 to 12. In the study group, on average, the military parent had been deployed more than twice.
One-third of the kids reported significant levels of anxiety, regardless of whether the military parent was deployed.
“It’s very striking that their anxiety did not go down after reintegration,” said Patricia Lester, lead author of the study. “A lot of that anxiety is attributable to separation anxiety — watching, worrying, not knowing when the parent may leave again.”
There were gender differences too. Girls acted out more when the parent was deployed, but boys had more trouble adjusting to increased structure and the loss of autonomy when the overseas parent came home.
The report also validated previous studies that showed the mental well-being of the military spouse heavily influenced how the children fare.
“A good word for military kids and spouses is resilience,” said Deni Johnson, a Colorado Springs mother of three whose husband, a lieutenant colonel, has been deployed three times. “That doesn’t mean they like it, but they just toughen up and get through it.”
Her two girls, in junior high and high school, “just picked up the slack and took on extra chores,” she said.
Her youngest child, a 7-year-old boy, “was 7 months old when my husband was deployed the first time. His father’s been gone half of his life, and he doesn’t know anything but dad being gone. He’s now home for two consecutive years, which is the most time since our son was born.”
Her husband could be deployed a fourth time.
It’s hard for this generation of military children to “try to get into some kind of normal life” when the parent returns from war, Johnson said, “because in the back of their mind, they know they’ve only got a few months, and they’ll leave again. It’s almost like you keep your guard up. Kids just get used to dad being home, then he’s gone again.”
Another impact on children is evident at the Military Community Youth Ministries in Colorado Springs. It works with kids ages 6 to 12 but has, for the first time, opened its program to younger children.
“It’s to help the older children,” McCarty said. “We’re finding that so many of them are responsible for child care. They can’t participate in our activities because they have to babysit a younger brother or sister.”
They’ve also just launched a nine-week pilot program that helps kids talk through the issues of being a military teen today.
“Much as military teens wish to be average kids, they’re not,” McCarty said. “They express anger and also guilt. They view their dad as a hero but also (their disrupted family life) as his fault.
“Most military teens are fairly patriotic, but some will say, ‘It’s my dad’s fault I have this life. He wanted to fight. I didn’t want to.’ “
Colleen O’ Connor: 303-954-1083 or coconnor@denverpost.com