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Unlike military brats, the term affectionately given to the children of military personnel who live on base, SMKs are not raised in the military culture, because their parents aren't on active duty. So, they don't have the automatic support of peers or teachers who necessarily understand the sudden pressures placed on them when a parent deploys. "They think they are the only one in the situation. They don't know anyone else who has a parent sent away," says Theresa Ferrari, Ohio project director of Operation: Military Kids, a national group founded in 2004 that organizes activities...
Research suggests that military children fare worse when a soldier-parent is deployed for a combat tour. According to a new study published in the Aug. 1 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, when an enlisted parent left home, the rates of confirmed child abuse and neglect rose more than 40%, at the hands of the parent who stayed behind. "These findings were consistent regardless of parents' age, rank or ethnic background," says Deborah Gibbs, the study's lead author, "indicating that deployments are difficult for all kinds of families...
...Ferrari explains, older children are tasked with increased family responsibilities, from yard work to looking after younger siblings and providing increased emotional support to the remaining parent. Some children struggle academically when the parent who helped them with their homework is deployed. And for the remaining spouse, it becomes harder to keep up with the usual routines, like shuttling the kids to soccer practices, scout meetings and ballet classes. And then there is the constant fear that the deployed parent may be injured or killed...
Explaining to the youngest children why a parent is leaving home is often a difficult task. That's why the military paired up with Elmo and friends for a Sesame Street DVD called "Talk, Listen, Connect: Helping Families Cope with Military Deployment." More than 250,000 copies have been distributed to families since it was released in August 2006, and a follow-up study conducted by the Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University reports that the video helped kids interact more constructively with their families, and helped parents feel less depressed about their spouse's deployment...
Operation: Military Kids aims to alleviate that feeling of estrangement. It hands out "Hero Packs" - backpacks that students in local 4H groups fill with crayons, activity books, and disposable cameras to help military kids keep in contact with their parent overseas. The packs also contain hand-written letters, telling the children how much their families' sacrifices are appreciated...