TEACHING KIDS TO COPE

Military teens said they missed their military parents and in more ways than one. First, service members are gone a lot. Deployments take parents away for months at a time. Temporary duty, training, or necessary separations, such as a family staying behind so children can finish the school year, also bring absences. Birthdays, holidays, and family vacations often occur without the service member parent present. Then, there is another kind of missing called “ambiguous loss.” Returning from a combat deployment, the parent may be a different person. Those suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or physical injury may have striking differences from when they last saw their teen. Military teens miss the parent they had before the deployment, but it’s not something they can really explain or change. This is compounded by the natural, personal changes a teen experiences during adolescence. We have created an app to give teens strength, tools and hope.