Reference:
MacDermid Wadsworth, S. M., Cardin, J. F., Christ, S., Willerton, E., Flittner O’Grady, A., Topp, D., Coppola, E., Lester, P., & Mustillo, S. (2016). Accumulation of risk and promotive factors among young children in US military families. American Journal of Community Psychology. Advance online publication, 57(1-2), 1-263. doi: 10.1002/ajcp.12025
Summary:
There is a new wave of war veterans now entering the civilian population in the U.S. These veterans are a part of vibrant military families with more than two million young children in their ranks. Many important studies show that military children who experienced separation from a parent due to combat-related deployment are at an increased risk for a variety of negative consequences. Some scholars argue that current research on military children focus too much on the negative aspects of their experience and fail to recognize their strengths, the strengths of their families or the supports around them. Military children live in almost every city, town and rural area in the U.S. Many of these children have experienced unique stressors as a result of their military parents’ wartime deployments. These children rely on community-based professionals for education, support and treatment before and after their parent’s service. Understanding the diversity, functioning and well-being of military children is important not only for the children of this generation of veterans but also for children whose parents will deploy in the future.
This study focuses on strengths that reside within the individual and factors that are external to the individual (promotive factors) as well as risk factors. While looking at the lives of military children under the age of 10, researchers found that risk factors, particularly parental depression, community poverty and cumulative risk, were more strongly associated with children’s outcomes than promotive factors.