How to Raise Young Children During a Military Deployment | eHow.com

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Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Things You'll Need:

• Map
• Calendar
• Stickers
• Video recorder

Step1

Talk to your children before the deployment. Children need to hear honest explanations about where there parent will be, what they will be doing and when they are coming back.

Step2

Explain that deployment is part of a job. Children may internalize their feelings, and think that they are the reason their mother or father is gone. Even if they don't express this to you, make sure you let them know they didn't do anything to make their parent leave.

Step3

Stick to existing routines as much as possible, but create new routines that help your child communicate and deal with the temporary loss of their parent.

Step4

Post a map in their room. Mark where the deployed parent is and then where you are. Talk openly about the distance, but calm their fears by finding fun facts about where the deployed parent is. This may divert their attention from their fears, and give them something besides the distance to focus on.

Step5

Hang a calendar before the deployment and put a sticker on each day of the deployment. Give your child the sticker every morning and remind them that it is a daily gift from the deployed parent. They will wear it proudly.

Step6

Encourage your children to talk on the phone with their deployed parent and make pictures or write letters to send on a weekly basis. Make sure the deployed parent responds, either by letter or phone to each thing sent.

Step7

Make a recording of the deployed parent reading stories, and make this a bedtime routine. Hearing the sound of their mother or father's voice may calm them and make them feel like their parent is not so far away. It is also calming for the parent left to raise the children!