The Military Child - Essay Example

The Military Child The Military Child Military families sacrifice their experiences and comfort greatly when soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors are called to serve a nation abroad. Adolescents are the most affected by these frequent movements. Their distinctive developmental perspective and limited life exposure put them in a risk of emotional distress during separations from the dear ones. Mostly, children’s reaction to the deployment of parents varies depending various factors including, phase of deployment, age, gender among other family factors. This paper discusses the trials of frequent movement, changing schools and losing or making friends in adolescents. The requirements on military members, as well as their families, are not only becoming complex but are turn out to increase every day. During the deployment program, most children become vulnerable and in most cases their inimitable development standpoint is put into risk. Additionally, most children experience emotional anguish during the disjointing period due to comparison. Children have a tendency of comparing themselves with other children. For example; children expect both of their parents to be available for a special occasion like birthday parties, graduation ceremonies, award ceremonies among others (Keller & Decoteau, 2000). A family set up is a very crucial element. Even when there is no war, military children have to deal stress associated with frequent absenteeism and frequent moves of their parents. This becomes even more when the military members engage in war. There are very rare cases when a military family becomes comfortable even when the whole family is together. In most cases, there is a concern, panic or worry about the safety of the parent. Adolescent in a military family are the most affected due to the added duties and responsibilities. Where the military member is a woman, most families opt to share some duties to female youths. On the other hand, male adolescents take some responsibilities of a man if the man is a military. This addition to family duties may negatively affect the social life of the children as well as their academic life (Britt, Adler, & Castro, 2006). Military families especially the youth are significantly affected by frequent moves by their parents in the course of their duties. The adolescents are even more affected in case of military deployment to war. The adolescents and entire families face a number of challenges at the time of movement and after the movement. The emotional cycle of the children begins after the news about deployment is released. It begins with a period of intense emotions such as anger and fear. As the time to leave gets close, a period of withdrawal and detachment may occur. Military adolescents often negotiate about the many transitions in their military families. A good number of them are not satisfied with the frequent moves, changing of communities and schools, changing of friends and even changing of states and countries. The movements could be as well an opportunity for adventure and growth (Britt, Adler, & Castro, 2006). Mostly, military children especially the adolescents find it challenging to deal with the stress of being new to an environment due to relocations. Sometimes relocation affects the growth of children. In most circumstances, children learn new skills and new development in the environment they are living. In addition, it is even more challenging when the culture of the environment is different. Adolescents love to stick to what they know, and they would like to change to a different lifestyle. Cultural adaptation poses a significant challenge to military children. Frequent changing of schools and navigation can interfere with the life of military children. Schools use different education system. In most cases when the military members are deployed, they are required to switch schools for their children. Sometimes the education system used previously by the military children could be entirely different from the education system of their current school. The switching can negatively influence the performance of the child due to the adaptability issues. In addition, switching of schools makes students feel lonely and uncomfortable primarily due to the particular attention and consideration offered to them. In most school, new students are given offered some unique treatment that sometimes turns out discomforting to the students. Many teenagers will opt to drop out of school when moving becomes persistent. Moving from one community to another can be one of most stressful thing in the life of an adolescent. Studies show that adolescents who frequently move are likely to have issues in schools. Military children experience social difficulties in schools. In a school environment, peer relationship is very critical for academic success and confidence of a student. Military children lack an opportunity to develop a close relationship due to frequent switching of schools. For this reason, they are unable to understand most of their peers and hence they do not develop a strong relationship. Adolescents love making friends, and they know how to sustain their friendships. Ones a teenage establishes a relationship it may last forever. In other words, adolescents may not want to separate from their peers. A military teenager experiences hard time because of frequent movement. They are not able to make best friends because they keep on moving from one place to another, and they might not trace their friends again after moving. Frequent moving makes a teenager anti-social as they do not to make friends and lose them after a short period. Military children are offered an opportunity to experience the diversity of languages. Sometimes, militaries are be deployed to an environment having a different language. Although, a new language can be beneficial to the children in terms of language proficiency, learning new languages after the certain duration is a very challenging task. It takes time, effort and dedication to learn a new language. Military children may be required to learn a new language for every time that moves. Most adolescent military children find it challenging to dedicate their time learning a new language while they could have been utilizing their time on pursuing their academic work. In addition, it is even challenging when the student is required to consult their peers. Language problem negatively influences the academic performance in almost every aspect of academic life including, it is time-consuming, social difficulties, academic challenges among other challenges (Keller & Decoteau, 2000). In most cases, adolescents who have frequent moves suffer from emotional experience just like children who have experienced divorce. Sometimes, some military members opt not to relocate with their families. Some prefer to get deployed as they leave their families to protect the academic performance of their children. Although, leaving them behind may appear like a good idea, children agonize on what could happen to them if their parent fails to get back. This emotional trauma can only be resolved by preparing the children psychologically before the due day of departure. Frequent movements will expose adolescents to mental illness children, traumatic experiences among other mental related problems. Military living is sometimes considered to be a source of physiological stress for adult children. Frequent movements, multiple deployments, the death of parents, an injury suffered by parents among other severe issues have become a reality for military children (Keller & Decoteau, 2000). Nevertheless, an adolescent from a military family has an opportunity to make new friends. The Study shows that individual’s with a large circle of friends has high esteem compared to individuals with low esteem. Friends help children to raise their confidence and more importantly raise their self-esteem. The more the friends an adolescent have from different locations, the more the adolescent will be informed. In most cases, children tend to turn to their friend when they have confidential matters that they are afraid to share with their parents. In such situation, children are relieved the burden of being depression as well as other illnesses that could have been caused by loneliness. Frequent movement of military families enables a military child to have a large circle of friends (Kelley, 2003). Frequent movement may be difficult for the youth in case there is an overlap between the social connections in the origin and potential neighborhood. Teens may strain to manage relationships and obligations from the previous neighborhood. In conclusion, deployment of military members can have a significant influence on the lives f the children. In other words, the normal behavior and functionality of the child is affected either socially, academically, financially and most importantly spiritually. The paper has discussed a military child. In addition, the paper has discussed how the life of a military child is affected by deployment. References Britt, T. W., Adler, A. B., & Castro, C. A. (2006). Military Life: The military family. Chicago: Greenwood Publishing Group. Keller, M. M., & Decoteau, G. T. (2000). The Military Child: Mobility and Education. New York: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation. Kelley, M. L. (2003). Geographic Mobility, Family, and Maternal variables as related to the Psychosocial Adjustment of Military Children. Military Medicine, 45-67. Read More