Transitions such as deployments can bring a lot of emotional adjustments for your child. Use the ideas below to help your child express what she is feeling about the deployment:

Talk to your child about her feelings.

• Children often have a hard time expressing their emotions. From pre-deployments through homecomings and long afterward, it’s important to encourage your child to let you know how he is feeling – with words, faces, drawings, and questions. Then you can better help him adjust. Let him know that it’s OK to feel all the ways he’s feeling. Reassure him: “I’ll be here for you.”

Be aware of different reactions from your children.

• If you have more than one child, don’t be surprised if each reacts differently to the coming deployments. Encourage older children to help out; make sure they know they’re part of the team. For example, the older child can say, “Let’s draw a picture for Mom. Then we’ll show it to Dad and he can help us send it to her.” But of course, as the parent, you’ll want to make sure older children know that they should share their worries and concerns with you, too, just as the younger ones do.

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