It's been said that "army brats" know how to pack their bags and bid their goodbyes, but what happens when it's time for the kids to see their own parents off? While it's one thing when a husband or wife makes the conscious choice to marry a spouse who's in the military and bear the brunt of that decision, it's quite another for children of single parents to uproot their lives (yet again) to stay with relatives when mom or dad is deployed. A touching New York Times report examined the physical and emotional effects of such circumstances. It said:
And a paper published in the journal Pediatrics in late 2009 found that children in military families were more likely to report anxiety than children in civilian families. The longer a parent had been deployed in the previous three years, the researchers found, the more likely their children were to have had difficulties in school and at home.
What's your opinion?
