Guest Author - Stacey Abler

When mom or dad deploys to serve our country, our children can be left with a range of emotions they have a hard time dealing with or expressing. Depending on the age of your child, they may have a difficult time even comprehending where they military parents has gone.

These are tips that I have gathered from military wives who are moms and I hope you will find them useful as well. If you have other tips to share, please email me! Also, all of these tips refer to dad as being the one who is away but can just as easily be used if mom is the one who is deployed.

1. Have Dad record himself reading several books. These recordings can be played nightly at bedtime to the kids.

2. Have pictures of Dad around. Give the kids a wallet size of picture of Dad to carry with them.

3. Set up a countdown method. This can be putting a certain number of Hershey’s Hugs & Kisses in a jar and taking one out each day so they can get a hug or kiss from dad. Or it could involve a paper link chain where you remove one link each day. To guard against disappointment, always add a few days to your countdown in case there is a delay.

4. Let the kids send whatever they want to dad – whether it’s a letter, a coloring book page or a gift. It’s important to let them express themselves.

5. Communicate regularly through written letters, pictures, videotapes and audio tapes. This is as important for him as it is for the kids.

6. Let the children express their emotions – good or bad. If they are mad or upset at dad for leaving, let them express it. Then make sure you tell them that dad loves them, misses them and would rather be home too but he has an important job to do.

7. Avoid the news if at all possible. It will be very hard to reassure them of Dad’s safety if they hear news accounts every day about soldiers being killed.

8. Take your kids out to look at the stars. Remind them that dad is looking at the same stars so it seems he isn’t so far away.

9. Save messages on your answering machine. Play back the messages when the kids want to hear dad’s voice. This could even be pre-arranged with dad recording a special message.

10. Do special things that only happen when Dad is away. For example, have ice cream sundaes for dinner once a week. Let the kids eat dessert first every once in a while. Visit a special attraction in town such as a museum or the zoo.

11. Be sure the teachers know that Dad has deployed so they can help and also alert you to any changes in your child’s behavior.

There are many different ways that military families have found effective in helping their kids deal with deployments. Please be sure to share yours with us on our message board. Your tip could assist a parent in helping their child through this difficult time.

Stacey Abler is an Army Wife and owner of the website, http://www.marriedtothearmy.com.
In addition, she also operates several Cafepress stores - http://www.cafepress.com/soldierswife for Army families and http://www.cafepress.com/soldierswife2 for Navy, Marine and Air Force families.