“We serve too!”: Everyday militarism of children of US service members

Abstract

There are 2 million United States military–attached children worldwide; however, the US government does not track the data of those who commit suicide. Military children’s daily lives are affected by the everyday and slow violence of constantly preparing for war. This article conducts a critical content analysis of family resiliency resources and children’s books to highlight the ongoing need for structural change. We conclude with recommendations on how to best address the specific needs of military-attached children.

Keywords

Children militarism resiliency suicide the War on Terror United States youth

Introduction

As the global War on Terror becomes a second-generation war (Smithsonian Magazine, 2019), the trans-generational impact on 2 million US military children remains unknown. Despite numerous studies, including multigenerational surveys of adult children, research consistently reveals that “there are significant and enduring adverse effects of parental deployment on the mental health of children in military families” (Forrest et al., 2018: 1060). For 20 years, policy recommendations created by both academic and military mental health providers shows that “suicidal ideation, feeling sad or hopeless, and depression . . . [and] increases if the family members in the military are deployed” (Cederbaum et al., 2014: 672). A multiple-dimensional study of suicidality among military-connected youth revealed approximately 24% reported seriously considering suicide compared to 18% for non-military adolescents (Gilreath et al., 2016: 63). These reports lack specific examples of the everyday experiences of military children. Today, military children are “bearing the burden of our war on terrorism” but the US government “does not track or analyze data on suicides among children of service members,” but is aware that suicidal rates increase with each deployment (Zarembo, 2015). This article seeks to highlight military children’s everyday experiences which manifest as mental health issues, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation.

Methodology

This article contributes to the everyday militarism literature by centering the experience and unique challenges facing US military–attached children and families. We highlight how children experience a range of adverse experiences, often at much higher rates than their peers, due to constant military readiness and the deployment of a parent, including depression, suicide ideation, and a lack of continuity in their lives. Military deployment combined with a unique military culture produces family instability that greatly affects childhood development, specifically attachment, education, and sleep. As a psychotherapist specializing in trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for 40 years, I regularly work with military families and children both on and off the base. For this project, my co-author and I conduct critical content analysis (Short, 2017: 1) of a half dozen military family resiliency resources and eight children’s books to reveal contradictory aspects to the lived everyday militarized experience of youth and caregivers.

In attempts to normalize the everyday experience of war preparation, the US Department of Defense (DoD) regularly releases new family resiliency programs created by private health insurance companies and facilitated by consultants aimed at “building resiliency in children” (Military & Family Life Counselors, n.d.). While the resources may offer skills for managing a stressful situation or significant event, they lack information about military-specific trauma and military culture and suggest children can control their own fears and anxieties (MHN Government Services, n.d.-b). Most of the current resources are not specifically designed for military families, but instead for “force multipliers” such as chaplains, therapists, and other health professionals who are tasked with lessening the burden of service members to make re-deployment(s) possible (MHN Government Services, n.d.-a). The majority of the information includes generic approaches for building resiliency that is not specific to, nor directly related to the unique circumstances of serving in the armed forces. Advice such as “remove yourself from the stressful situation or environment” is often not possible for these families (MHN Government Services, n.d.-a).

We then briefly critique eight commonly used military-related children’s books addressing the challenges of military life of (re)deployment and frequent moves and new schools. While the themes of the books may be military-specific, the books replicate the military culture of heroism, service, sacrifice, and emphasize the children “put on a happy face” (Marsh, 2003a: 17). Furthermore, the books lack suggestions for the more troubling concerns military-children struggle with, such as bullying beyond school, family violence, PTSD, and depression, as well as drug- and alcohol-abusing family members.

Along with the critical content analysis, 15 academic articles, scholarly studies, and reports are included to demonstrate the negative impacts of both multiple parental deployments as well as the lack of understanding of everyday repercussions for military families. We argue the long-term and multiple deployments, compounded by daily disruptions and lack of stability within their homes, schools, and communities as well as the military culture of violence and silence to reporting, greatly impacts childhood development, specifically attachment, education, and sleep. We advocate for immediate investment into military youth suicide prevention, beginning with a US DoD-standardized data collection process.

US military children stationed globally

While military children may be geographically far from active conflict zones, their everyday experiences and daily routines, as well as their homes and educational spaces are centered around the readiness of the largest military in the world.¹ The United States has spent US$1.9 trillion fighting terrorism since 11 September 2001 and is now “combating terrorism” in 40% of the world’s nations, with Americans actively engaged in countering terrorism in 80 nations on six continents (Savell and 5W Infographics, 2019). Families living on one of the 4127 installations spread across 19 million acres of “American soil” (Nazaryan, 2014) as well as across the 1000 overseas outposts beyond the continental United States (Vine, 2015) serve as both “frontlines and homefronts” for the United States (Frain, 2017). Military children navigate uncertainty and instability along with their parents and caregivers. In the children’s book, Someone I Love Went Off to War. . .What Do I Do Now? a boy recalls, “I hear my family talk about the war. I hear neighbors talk about the war. I hear friends talk about the war. Sometimes we talk about the war at school” (Marsh, 2003a: 5).

Many military-attached children attend one of the 164 accredited US Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) schools which operate in eight districts across 11 foreign countries, in seven states, as well as the militarized territories of Guam and Puerto Rico (DoDEA, 2019). Issues that military children and family face are unique, such as “family cohesion and connectedness during and after deployment, family stability during reintegration of the service member,” as well as many of the same challenges that non-military families do such as domestic violence and child abuse (Wolf et al., 2016: 26). However, the everyday militarism compounds the challenges, and military children express anxiety and depression uniquely.

Everyday experiences of military children: Daily and nightly disruptions

Military children’s daily lives are affected by the everyday and slow violence of constantly preparing for war. The everyday experiences include daily and nightly disruptions, detachment and separation from their families, as well as constant patriotic performances and forms of commemorations across the base and the schools.

On every US military installation at 8:00 a.m. or 0800 (pronounced “zero-eight-hundred”) local time, the short song “Reveille” is played across all loudspeakers, signifying the raising of the national flag (Military Spouse Team, 2013). As soon as the music begins, all service members and children must stop what they are doing, face headquarters or the closest flag, and salute. If the services people are not in uniform, they may stand to attention or at “Parade Rest.” All civilians are expected to stop and stand with their hands on their hearts with vehicles stopping driving. School also begins at 0800, and if late for this ceremony of “Colors” in the morning, they are even later for the start of class. Children’s anxiety about being late to school is compounded by the daily refocusing on the American flag and military culture of heroism, service, and sacrifice.

Every evening at 5:00 p.m. or 1700 (“seventeen-hundred”) “Retreat” is played for the lowering and folding of the US flag, followed by the song “Taps” across on the loudspeakers. These daily disruptions of demonstrating dedication affect children’s schedules and are an element of the normalization of service and militarism as patriotism. Often the responsibility of the delivery of these programs is also placed on the DoDEA school counselors who are tasked with teaching the parents and children “accurate, but age-appropriate information [to explain why] the military parent is serving our country” (Easterbrooks et al., 2013: 102).

Deployment

Academic studies on military children regularly focus on the negative impacts of multiple, lengthy wartime deployments and indicate the emotional toll and behaviors children demonstrate during parental wartime absences (Cederbaum et al., 2014; Chandra et al., 2010, 2011; Flake et al., 2009; Forrest et al., 2018; Gilreath et al., 2016; Jensen et al., 1996; Lester et al., 2011; Nelson et al., 2016; Philpott, 2009; Wolf et al., 2016). In 2010, the RAND Corporation, which offers research and analysis to the US Armed Forces, released the results of the first study of its kind entitled “Children on the Homefront.” The study compared military children to other youth populations and “assessed the experiences of parental deployment from a youth perspective” (Chandra, 2010: 2). Paid for by the National Military Family Association (NMFA), the report concludes that military children have more emotional difficulties in connecting to families, engaging in schoolwork, and mixing with peers than do children of the same ages across the country. Researchers were surprised to learn the children’s problems deepened with longer or more frequent deployments, and “cumulative months of exposure to deployment really seemed to hold up and present [more] challenges for families” (Chandra et al., 2010: 24).

The everyday experiences of preparing for deployment include children observing family members going back and forth between “denial and anticipation of loss which results in a sort of psychological pulling away” (Andrews, 2007: 11). It is common for both spouses and service members to psychologically withdraw before deployment (Wolf et al., 2016: 26). Some children blame themselves for their parent going away. Academic research confirms children of deployed personnel experience “elevated self-reported symptom levels of depression, as did their parents” (Jensen et al., 1996: 438).

Wives of Army members are at higher risk for a variety of mental health issues, such as anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders (Mansfield et al., 2010). This form of parental stress is then passed down to their school-age children. While Army wives are portrayed as “patriotic,” there remains the stigma of mental illness. If they or their child express issues, the military culture tends to judge the mothers and their parenting, with individuals explaining that they are chastised for “not being nurturing enough” (Bannerman, 2015: 232). In a 2011 study, one-third Army spouses with a deployed service member and a child aged 5–12 years identified as “high risk” for psychosocial morbidity, with 42% reporting “high risk” stress levels for themselves (Lester et al., 2011: 160). This confirmed that parental stress “significantly predict[s] an increase in child psychosocial morbidity” (Lester et al., 2011: 160). Therefore, the everyday experiences of children are greatly affected by their parent’s well-being.

The War on Terror is creating an unparalleled time for military families given the strain of operations over many years on both active and reserve volunteers. Studies confirm that children with deployed parents “express more aggressive behavior and increased rates of biting, hitting, and hyperactivity” (Ash, 2008). All of these feelings and expressions are indicators of sadness, anxiety, and depression which are normal and natural for young children given the circumstances. In the stoic environment of the military community, children need permission and guidance to express their feelings without feeling unpatriotic. Caregivers must be honest with children about the stages of pre-deployment, deployment, post-deployment, and re-deployment and not gloss over the historical context and reason the parent is gone. Children need materials that prepare them for the reality of repeated deployments.

Scholastic impact

In addition to the emotional and mental health toll, every month a parent is away also affects a student’s academic achievement (Nelson et al., 2016). Not only do multiple deployments create emotional and behavioral issues at home and among their peers but also create an “academic and emotional burden” for military children and their learning suffers when the parents are deployed (Spark, 2011). This deployment deficit is most evident for children with an Army service member, with the longest deployment periods of 19 months or more. Army children have lower test scores than their peers and other military children and fell behind in math and language arts performance when deployment periods were extended from 12 to 15 months in 2007 and 2008 (Mansfield et al., 2010: 101).

Military children and suicidal ideation

Academic studies are beginning to address suicide rates for adolescent military children (Cederbaum et al., 2014; Gilreath et al., 2016) or adult children of veterans (Forrest et al., 2018) and express urgency in addressing these issues. However, younger children also exhibit suicidal ideation across military bases. For instance, an 11-year-old boy, “Daniel,” did not want his dad to be deployed for his second tour in Iraq and killed himself (Bannerman, 2015: 34–38). While there are preventive measures in place, most young children do not normally show their sadness, depression, and anxiety to others or in the same ways older children may. This is particularly true when their parents and caregivers are stressed and overwhelmed themselves. Often medication is given and professionals minimize suicidal behaviors in children such as cutting, misdiagnosing it as “a phase” (Bannerman, 2015: 41).

According to the Association of School Psychologists (NASP), suicide risk factors include mental illness such as depression, family stress/dysfunction, environmental influences such as the presence of guns in the home, and situational crises such as the traumatic death of a loved one, sexual abuse, or family violence (DoDEA, 2014).

The current DoDEA (2014) statement regarding suicide and DoDEA schools states,

We must all be diligent and sensitive to any expressions of suicidal thoughts and be committed to do everything possible to prevent suicide in DoDEA . . . Prevention programs encourage students to seek assistance by self-reporting . . . our DoDEA programs encourage resilience in students by offering hope and new meaning to life and students should encourage the individual to talk with an adult . . . DoDEA is pro-active in suicide prevention and in all DoDEA middle and high schools.

While these prevention programs may be available in DoDEA middle and high schools, there is a lack of resources and services for elementary schools, where students express sadness, anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation at alarming rates. With over 20 years of research indicating children with deployed parents have “evaluated symptoms of depression” and with “younger children seem to be more vulnerable” (Jensen et al., 1996: 439), deployment lengths have instead been extended (up to 19 months) and include multiple (six or more) tours. Furthermore, “given the unique characteristics of multiple and lengthy deployments, understanding the potentially cumulative impact of these parental absences on child well-being is long overdue” (Chandra et al., 2011: 190).

Family resiliency resources

Resilience concerning military-attached children and families is conceptualized as “not a personal trait but a product of the relationships between children and the people and resources around them” (Easterbrooks et al., 2013: 100). A common psychological approach to fostering resiliency is to nurture it as a skill children can be taught (Frain and Clegg, 2007). The DoD does not offer one specific military family resiliency program, approach, or promote consistent resources (MHN Government Services, n.d.-c). Researchers confirm that “few of these programs have been based on scientific evidence of what works, and few have been rigorously evaluated for their effectiveness” with the problematic conclusion of “most military children, turn out just fine” (Easterbrooks et al., 2013: 101). For example, thematic analysis of one private health insurance company contractor MHN Governmental Services’ PowerPoint presentations and handouts offers guidance as “tips” to parents and caregivers (MHN Government Services, n.d.-b).

There is also a great need to tackle the military cultural barriers to ensure children and families can access the current resources. A culture of silence among service members and those up the chain of command is to ensure that the “mission comes first” and continues to prevent those who need assistance from seeking it as well as reporting issues. Despite the cost to the families and children, reporting child and sexual violence as well as treatment is seen as a “disruption” to the mission. What services are provided, still leaves the family feeling “helpless” and that no one understands what those serving experience (Butler et al., 2015: 117). An existing program includes the Army’s Family Readiness Groups (FRG) which are designed to help parents within a unit while a spouse is deployed. However, the groups are run by volunteers who aim to provide “mutual support, resources and assistance and offer a network of communication between the chain of command and community” (US Army, 2019). However, they may not be professionally trained to handle mental health or child developmental issues. Spouses have reported that when they ask for more support for taking care of a spouse with PTSD or a difficult child, they are told, “Shut up and suck it up,” while others have asked for shelters on or off the base where they can find safety if a spouse becomes violent with them or their children (Bannerman, 2015: 265). “Strong Bonds” is a chaplain-led program developed for Army families in response to increased military suicides and aims to “strengthen marriages”; however, the program does not include information nor assistance if there is violence or the threat of violence in the family (Strong Bonds, n.d.). The advice offered is to “give it time” and take it slow and eventually (s)he will readjust (Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Handout, n.d.: 14). Under the threat of violence, this is not helpful or even safe advice.

A presentation offered by an insurance company contractor of the DoD entitled “How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep” explains causes of sleep deprivation, includes instructions for good sleep hygiene, and offers strategies for improving sleep (Military & Family Life Counselors [MFLC] Program, n.d.). However, the section on “putting worries out of your mind” is presented without specific guidelines or how that is difficult (or impossible) if you are trying to manage the symptoms of PTSD. There is no discussion addressing the circumstances and anxiety of military children who want to talk to their parents in a different time zone or are woken up when they do call. Furthermore, the presentation does not include resources for handling children’s military nightmares.

Children’s nightly routines are sometimes interrupted by military exercises that cause increased anxiety due to parental separation due to the parents having to leave quickly. Trainings and drills are often a surprise for the whole family with “exercise, exercise, exercise!” broadcasted from the loudspeakers across the base to wake up the services people, as well as the families. At times, active service parents must stand duty overnight. This can foster uncertainty for the children who may be dropped off at overnight daycare at a moment’s notice. Understandably, the children have trouble going back to sleep and the following day the children arrive at school exhausted, cranky, and frequently fall asleep during class. This unpredictable lived experience combined with lack of sleep affects the children’s ability to develop positive parental attachment as well as sleeping and learning habits.

Activity handbooks offered by the DoD which recommend strengthening and maintaining distance relationships suggest the children just change their negative thinking about the situation. Helping Your Kids Connect: 250 Activities to help your Children Stay Connected to their Long Distance, for “Moms over Miles” (The National Long Distance Relationship Building Institute, 2001b) and “Dads at a Distance” (The National Long Distance Relationship Building Institute, 2001a), both lack dialogue about the mental health issues of sadness, anxiety, and depression due to long-term and repeating parental detachment. Furthermore, there are no methods for parents and caregivers to answer the children’s questions.

Military families are immersed in a culture that respects toughness and strength, precision, and perfectionism. There are anti-bullying initiatives offered in every DoDEA school, which are greatly needed. However, the various anti-bullying programs only address child peer-to-peer bullying in schools and instruct school counselors and teachers not to include discussions about bullying within the family unit (Rapaport, 2015).

The everyday experience for military children also includes bullying beyond the school grounds within the home. Many children are exposed to the training methods drill sergeants use on new recruits to make them tough enough to serve. In fact, this organized form of bullying is honored. Children are not little soldiers and require healthier parenting techniques and forms of teaching. Many young military men and women are unaware of what young children need for their growth and development throughout the stages of childhood. The parents themselves often have had difficult or violent childhoods and without education are at risk of repeating these hurtful practices.

There remains a culture of silence and disbelief of children when they do express concerns. Children who have witnessed domestic violence or have been abused themselves live with uncertainty, worry, and fear of retaliation should they tell a trusted adult about potential violence toward themselves or their parent. While at times the abuse is reported, little is done to hold the perpetrator accountable and often the perpetrator is not even referred for counseling and can still carry a weapon (Bannerman, 2015: 109).

Furthermore, when violent and non-violent adverse childhood experiences within the family are not reported and the child who was harmed does not get help for their trauma, they may act out to other kids (Blosnich et al., 2014: 1041; Jamieson, 2020). Teachers are not necessarily informed about the problem and do not want a child who is acting out in their classroom. Because of confidentiality concerns, the school does not consistently tell parents about the behaviors of the child acting out. Other times, principals or other school personnel are unsure of reporting processes or not willing to report cases, even though they do not have to prove it happened and reporting is supposed to be anonymous (Personal communication, June 30, 2016). “Conversations with dozens of VA service providers who are all mandatory (reporters) revealed that they seldom report an incident of veteran violence toward a caregiver even when there are children in the home” (Bannerman, 2015: 254).

Military bases are structured like small cities and people who live on them often socialize or attend churches with the potential perpetrators. Although DoDEA personnel are considered mandated reporters, reporting may not happen for fear of retribution. For instance, their spouse may be in the same unit as the possible perpetrator (or may have a higher rank). To complicate matters further, each location may have different laws depending on the country or state the offense took place in. On some bases, personnel must report to the military commander or military police as well as to Child Protective Services located off base.

Children’s books

Military children’s books are sometimes developed alongside the resiliency resources for their parents and address issues such as moving and deployments. However, they also oversimplify the reasons for war. For example, in H is for Honor: A Military Family Alphabet, which explains service people work “to protect freedom and equality” (Scillian, 2006: 9), the author relies on racist ideologies, and downplays the dangers of military service.

Military families are uprooted every 2–3 years, meaning military children move six to nine times from kindergarten through 12th grade and often do not have a sense of community, family, or friends to support them when their parent soon deploys. Many families include health care providers, doctors, teachers, friends, and ex-spouses who also move every 2–3 years offering very little stability and much higher than your average public school (Montgomery, 2004). Little C.H.A.M.P.S—Child Heroes Attached to Military Personnel emphasizes how children can cope with the loss and hardships associated with moving. Juxtaposed with children expressing anger, shock, fear, and regression, there are messages “to smile even when you are sad, scared or worried” and shows one boy holding back or hiding his tears when he learns that he will have to leave his friends again (Fink and Fink, 2012: 3). By suggesting “each time we enter a new school, we have to bring our courage, confidence and positive attitude,” the approach of focusing on confidence and positivity may deny the feelings and experiences of children who are introverts or have special needs and have trouble making friends (Fink and Fink, 2012: 49). Children demonstrate these unstable experiences often through difficult behavior, manifesting as sadness, anger, anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. They may reject authority and refuse to participate in the school, home, and church.

I Miss You! A Military Kid’s Book About Deployment guides family members through the difficulties of deployment and explains that they will feel sad, angry, afraid, anxious, lonely, and worried about the parents’ safety (Andrews, 2007: 9). The explanations of the various emotional stages are well done, but the book does not explain why the parent went away for work except to say they will be helping other people and to be proud of them (Andrews, 2007: 25) and that it does not help “to worry a lot about things that may not happen” (p. 28). Instead, children are directed to “have fun and let the grown-ups do the worrying” (Andrews, 2007: 28). For many children who experience their parents’ stress and PTSD, this is not useful.

My Mommy is An Airman continues with that narrative where the child’s parent “takes care of bad guys” (Hilbrecht and Hilbrecht, 2004: 11). In addition, in the booklet entitled “Will They Fly A Plane Into Our House?” How to Talk to Children About Terrorism, “terrorists” are described as those with “a great deal of hate” in their hearts (Shapiro, 2001: 13).

While the book Paper Hug was created for military children, it only offers “fun ideas” without tools or suggestions on how to stay intimately connected to parents while they are at war (Skolmoski, 2006). Instead, these guides place the burden on the parents to engage in activities that focus on only positive interactions and the children are not shown expressing (to their parent) normal thoughts feelings of concern, fear, separation anxiety, and instead encourages them to suppress their feelings.

In two books created by Carole Marsh (2003a), War: What Kids Should Know, children are told their parents use “their unique skills to save people and kill bad guys” (Marsh, 2003b: 1) and “not all soldiers in war die, most soldiers who go to war do not even go to where the fighting is . . . and are never in danger of getting killed or wounded” (Marsh, 2003b: 10). The War on Terror is described as “not a traditional war, but one fought by the civilized world against people who try to kill innocent men, women, and children” (Marsh, 2003b: 3). This explanation is offered without historical context and promotes the dehumanization of the “other” who deserves to be killed because they are not part of the “civilized world” and will try to kill you, a child. In reality, children experience firsthand their parent(s) deployments, and behavior changes each time. In Someone I Love Went Off to War. . .What Do I Do Now? even if the worst thing happens (parent dies), “you are going to be proud of your loved one no matter what” (Marsh, 2003a: 21). Instead, children need to be able to share their fears, worries, grief, and anger over a period of time with loved ones in order to cope with the death of a parent. In addition, children attend DoDEA schools and live in buildings on bases named after those heroes who were killed.

Report recommendations

“The urgent demands of a country at war point to the need for a systematic rapid deployment of existing evidence-based approaches that may be adapted to meet the needs of military families” (Lester et al., 2011: 167). The RAND “Children on the Homefront” study suggests families may benefit from “targeted support to deal with stressors that emerge over time . . . [and] families in which caregivers experience poorer mental health may benefit from programs that support the caregiver and child” (Chandra et al., 2010: 24). The current targeted support is insufficient and children, especially elementary-aged, remain vulnerable to the everyday militarized experiences. Another study’s authors “highlight the need for physicians, clinical service providers, and public school teachers to be sensitive and proactive with this group, particularly with youth experiencing multiple family deployments” and advise an “increase [in] mental health screenings among all adolescents” (Cederbaum et al., 2014: 675). Furthermore, less is known about the impacts of everyday experiences of younger children or those with a sibling in the military. One study confirmed experiencing sibling deployment “was statistically significantly associated with substance use and depressive symptoms” (Williamson et al., 2018: 1).

Despite previous studies stating “military, family and community support help mitigate family stress” (Flake et al., 2009: 278), military families continue to see the overall defense budget increase, with 2020 figures at an astonishing US$738 billion (Military Benefits, 2020). However, there are limited and inconsistent increases in health care services for military families and veterans. While there are numerous programs and initiatives, the contemporary forms and methods remain detached and inconsistent. Every survey and study included recommendations to improve care and indicated the urgency for protecting military children. Military families continue to request resources and skills to better prepare themselves and their children. They specifically seek support regarding parental feelings of overwhelm, helplessness in being able to protect their child and self from “guilt” at not meeting the military standard of being a good wife as cheerful, resilient, patriotic, and flexible (Personal communication June 20, 2016).

Conclusion

Despite the 20 years of studies which continue to produce reports and recommendations, the everyday militarized experiences of children are unique and under-studied. The military considers both the children and parents as heroes for their service and creates a barrier to expressing emotions while devaluing their experiences and frustrations. Instead of honest and direct child-appropriate explanations of the complex situations of war, the children’s books instead often rely on racism that over-simplifies the understanding of military conflicts around the world while completely omitting the complex everyday experiences of military children. This is the stage in childhood development when family members and educators are working to foster emotional intelligence. Emphasizing sacrifice is counterproductive to healthy emotional mental expression and places a burden on children while contributing to anxiety, depression, and suicidality.

Our brief critical content analysis of a half dozen resiliency resources aimed at parents and caregivers, and eight children’s books, exposes that the current approach is inadequate and misleading. The resiliency programs often relieve the responsibility of the chain of command to care for the well-being of their military personnel and families and instead places the pressure on the parents, spouses to be Army-strong, and even for children themselves to self-report their feelings of despair. Suicide prevention programs must be informed by data to produce robust and psychologically sound approaches to understand military children’s mental health as well as their parents’ and caretakers’. Despite the organizational awareness of the negative impacts on attachment and bonding between service members and children due to longer and multiple deployments, the culture of silence continues to interfere with exposing (family) violence.

Our recommendations

Our recommendation to truly foster military family resilience is for a complete structural change. To prevent sadness, anxiety, and depression, one must remove oneself from the activity or environment causing the stress. The everyday militarized experience of children with active-duty US service parents does the opposite. As long as are children growing up in highly militarized environments without stability in their homes or schools, and combined with parental anxiety, depression, PTSD, and violence, true “resilience” is not possible for most.

If the goal is to counteract child sadness, depression, and suicidal ideation, we suggest first to shorten deployments to 3 months at the most for families of infants, toddlers, and preschool children. Second, move families less, especially for those with elementary-aged children, or allow them the choice to remain in their home communities. The mental health and monetary costs for moving families and maintaining military houses and schools for families on bases worldwide are high. A decrease in exposure to everyday militarism and the daily experiences of war preparation will also decrease children’s sadness, depression, and anxiety.

Third, the US DoD must develop a consistent, dependable, and robust system to prevent, report, and treat child abuse and domestic violence across US military installations. All force multipliers which include group volunteers, school counselors, and mental health professionals must be thoroughly and repeatedly trained to understand and take their mandated reporting and protection obligations seriously. Finally, specific mental health treatments must be offered across every location to reduce child suicide. This includes shifting the emphasis from children to self-report suicidal ideation and instead train childcare workers, doctors, nurses, teachers, and counselors about the causes and symptoms of sadness, depression, self-harm, and anxiety, particularly in young children.

There remains an urgent need for documenting adverse childhood experiences and tracking military children’s sadness, depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Suicidal ideation among young children on military bases is a growing problem and must be addressed. Our intention is to illuminate the hidden costs of the everyday and slow violence of constantly preparing for war on children.

Footnotes

Author’s note

Sylvia C Frain is now affiliated with The Everyday Peace Initiative, New Zealand.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Sylvia C Frain

Notes

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