In 2014, 1.8 million American children lived in military families, representing only a fraction of the U.S. children exposed directly to parents’ wartime deployments over the past 15 years. In this article, we summarize recent research about military children in U.S. families and propose directions for research.
Publications
Information about selected journal articles, papers, and other documents authored or formally reviewed by MFRI researchers and other staff:
Accumulation of Risk and Promotive Factors Among Young Children in U.S. Military Families (2016)
This study focuses on strengths that reside within individual military children under the age of 10, while examining the risk and external (promotive) factors associated with each individual. Researchers found that risk factors, particularly parental depression, community poverty and cumulative risk, were more strongly associated with children’s outcomes than promotive factors.
The impact of deployment on parental, family and child adjustment in military families (2016)
Current research tells us that wartime deployment has a negative impact on the well-being of service members and their families. Few studies have looked at how parental deployments impact young children and their families. The authors of this article used deployment records, parent-reported information and examined the influence of deployment on military families with children under the age of 10.
The many faces of military families: Unique features of the lives of female service members (2016)
Female service members’ family structures are very different from traditional military families with a male service member. In order to gain an understanding of the influence of women’s service on their family functioning, in-depth telephone interviews were conducted with 20 civilian husbands residing in 11 states around the U.S.