According to a new report, children ages 3 to 5 with a parent deployed to a war zone appear to exhibit more behavior problems than their peers whose parents are not deployed.
More than 2 million U.S. children have had parents deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan during the wars there, according to background information in the article. About 40 percent of these children are
younger than 5. Recent policy statements from the American Psychological Association and the Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health have called for research on the effect of wartime deployments on children in military families.
It is a big possibility since it can make the kids worry. Actually, it can make anyone depressed. Just the thought of not seeing a loved one again is painful enough.
Of the 169 families, 55 (33 percent) had a deployed parent, with an average deployment length of 3.9 months. Children age 3 and older who had a deployed parent had significantly higher scores on measures of externalizing and overall behavior problems than children of the same age without a deployed parent. Such reported differences might be dismissed as distorted perceptions of the child by the distressed non-deployed parent; however, the association remained after controlling for parental stress and depressive symptoms. In addition, childcare providers reported similarly elevated scores.
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