More than two million young children are family members of the new cohort of war veterans now entering the U.S. civilian population. Studies of military children tend to focus on stresses or deficits they experience, failing to give sufficient attention to their strengths, their families’ strengths, or the supports around them.
MFRI researchers studied the risk and promotive factors in the lives of children aged 0–10 in military families, with promotive factors being those that decrease the likelihood that young children will engage in negative behaviors or have negative outcomes.
We found that risk factors (e.g. parental depression and community poverty) were more strongly associated with children's outcomes than promotive factors. For military children who experience multiple risks, however, the promotive factors (e.g. parental education, positive family functioning, etc.) help protect them from those risks. The study was published in the American Journal of Community Psychology.