February 05, 2010 By Denise Etheridge Special to Connect

A study conducted by researchers from the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute has found most military teens cope well with their soldier parents’ multiple deployments.
Dr. Leonard Wong, a research professor from SSI, presented his findings Wednesday to a group of military leaders, parents, chaplains and psychiatrists at Fort Stewart.
Wong and his colleague, Dr. Stephen Gerras, conducted an online survey last March of 2,006 soldiers, 718 non-deployed spouses and 559 adolescents. In addition, they interviewed more than 100 adolescents from Army families stationed across eight installations including Fort Stewart, to determine the stress children age 11-17 experience from a soldier parent’s repeated deployments.
According to the survey, 56 percent of adolescents responded they coped well or very well to deployments overall. Seventeen percent of adolescents surveyed responded they coped poorly or very poorly with deployments overall.
Wong said the survey’s results were surprising.
“We found with each deployment a child’s stress level goes down,” he said. “It’s the opposite of what we thought we’d find.”
Wong added if a child believes the country supports the military their stress levels measured lower.
“Who would have thought a child’s attitude was the biggest predictor of how well they handle a life of (repeated) deployments,” he said.
The researcher listed several main factors which best predict a teen’s ability to cope with repeated deployments: a child’s belief that soldiers are making a difference, a strong family, the adolescent’s belief that Americans support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a strong non-deployed parent.
He said the factors which predict the lowest levels of stress for a single deployment are participation in sports and other activities, a strong family and the child’s belief the U.S. public supports the current wars.
Wong said his study found multiple deployments do not have a cumulative effect on adolescents from military families. Teens with active duty military parents who experience repeated deployments often learn coping skills from the first deployment, he said.
Army children, Wong said, also grow up learning the Army’s core values.
“She (or he) is not just a kid with a parent in the Army … she’s a kid who understands why,” he said.
Wong said most of the children they surveyed believe their parents are absent “because they’re doing something right,” as opposed to a child with an incarcerated parent who has done something wrong.
Dr. Janice Tanner with Winn Army Community Hospital said children age 11-17 tend to be selfless and altruistic.
“It’s where they are developmentally,” Tanner said. She said children in this age group need to have deeper meanings of the experiences in their lives, including parents’ deployments.
Wong also emphasized the study found a non-deployed parent who copes well with deployments helps keep a child’s stress levels lower.
A Rand Corporation study published in the Journal of Pediatrics last December found the same; if a non-deployed spouse reacts poorly to a deployment, the child also will be more anxious.
Wong said his study also found teens who have solid support from their peers and adult mentors, such as teachers, coaches and ministers as well as their parents, better handle deployments.
The Army researcher said his survey agrees with most of the findings of the Rand study, except the Rand study finds — from the Army spouses’ perspective — that multiple deployments do have a cumulative effect on teens.
“The interpretation of (the Rand) study clashes,” he said. “But from a child’s perspective it wasn’t a conflict.”
Wong said his study was different from previous studies, such as the Survey of Army Families in 2005 and the Survey of Active Duty Spouses in 2008, because he and Gerras questioned military children and not just their deployed and non-deployed parents.
Following Wong’s presentation, Maj. Ben Lacy, a Winn Army Community Hospital child and adolescent psychiatrist asked, “What’s next?”
Lacy suggested the Army War College conduct another study as a follow-up to the first, to determine steps parents and the Army community can take to improve assistance to children and families coping with deployments. He added he was concerned the study shows 17 percent of Army children do not cope well with deployments.
Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Phillips, 3rd ID deputy commander general-rear, said the study’s findings should not be “misused.” Programs currently in place to help soldiers and families cope with the stress of deployment can be enhanced and even expanded, he said.
Army parents who attended Wong’s presentation agreed that keeping children active and continued resiliency training for non-deployed spouses does help mitigate the stress of deployments.
Laura Smith, whose husband Lt. Col. Stephen Smith is on his sixth deployment, said their daughter, Sydney, 13, is well-adjusted.
“Sydney does very well,” Smith said. “She’s very active in school and has a lot of friends. She’s doing better with this deployment than with the last one two years ago. Sydney and her dad Skype (talk over the Internet) now, which helps a lot.”
Smith said she attended the forum to hear the results of Wong’s research.
“I want to know we’re on the right track to get through these deployments,” she said.

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