Adolescents Coping with Deployment Essay Example

responsibilities they had acquired while the military service member was away.

According to research, the environment can influence the level of stress and ability to cope with it on the part of the adolescent (Alfano et al. 2016). Accumulation of minor stressors without the proper mechanism to relieve them can compel the teenager to use unacceptable methods to reduce the stress. This paper seeks to examine the primary ways utilized by the adolescents in coping with military deployment.

Research which was done to determine the level of stress among teens who came from military families and those who came from non-military families showed that adolescents who grew up from a military family. The results confirm that there is a problem within those families, and hence, therefore, intervention strategy is needed. The main aim of this study is to explore the strategies used by the adolescents to cope with stresses due to military deployments. The research will provide empirical results which will be utilized by professionals to design programs to reduce stress.

Families in the military often experience deployments due to the demands of military obligations. In such situations sometimes families can adapt, but more often families find it difficult to overcome and adjust. When parents are consistently deployed spouse and children can become emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted leading to a decline in academic grades as well as being emotionally withdrawn from other family members.

In 2008 a grant was proposed to support military children due to the growing trend of families that is spread out throughout the United States. To date, the U.S. is composed of 1.2 million children that are a part of a military home (Speck &

Riggs 2016). With so many military families it is vital that they are supported by the local community as families all over the world will continue to deploy leaving their loved ones behind.

Studies have shown that students in grade school whose parents are used for more than 18 months over a three-year period functioned worse in school as opposed to children of parents that did not deploy. There are many sources available to military families to support them at a critical time such as deployment.

A comprehensive source that is very helpful to military families is military one source. Military one source is available to assist military families 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Military one source is helpful during deployment as it helps children handle stress and teach families different strategies to keep their routine as normal as possible and pre-arrange a family care plan if both parents are being deployed.

I am recommending that a support group is conducted over the next four weeks to educate youth (between the ages of 12-18) on positive techniques that can make deployments a little easier and implement coping skills to help manage the separation of one or both parents. Further youth will identify feelings, emotions and demonstrate positive behaviors while learning new coping skills. One of the principal objectives of the support group is to teach youth how to deal with becoming emotionally disconnected from their families and learn positive measures that will keep families with a strong, loving family bond (Speck & Riggs 2016).

It is strongly recommended that the caregiver of the child another parent, or the adult taking care of the child/children) be present

to each session to support the youth during this critical transition and also learn how deployment affects youth. Lastly the leader will be implementing a rational behavior approach to help young people and their caregivers understand why personality, mood, emotions, and behavior changes during times of deployment.