Deployments harder on girls, older youths

[unhappycamper]

Deployments harder on girls, older youths
By Karen Jowers - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Dec 8, 2009 14:13:30 EST

The more time military parents are deployed, the more problems their children have — and the problems are intensified for older youths and girls of all ages, who report more difficulties with family, school and peers, a new study shows.

About 30 percent of the military children surveyed by the Rand Corp. think tank also reported elevated anxiety symptoms, indicating a need for evaluation for possible anxiety disorders, researchers said.

“Children in this study had more emotional difficulties compared with national samples,” researchers wrote in the study, published in the January edition of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The number of deployments made by service members is less important than the cumulative time they spend away from their families, said Rand behavioral scientist Anita Chandra, the study’s lead researcher.

With the troop increase just announced for Afghanistan that will keep combat deployments at a high tempo for the near future, the finding that cumulative time away is the critical factor for children of deployed parents is a concern, said Joyce Raezer of the National Military Family Association, which commissioned the study.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/12/military_study_childrendeployments_120809w/

[Skittles]

1. a reminder it's not just the troops sacrificing

being a military dependent isn't easy even without deployment