I chose to look into how war affects children. My son Daniel is my subject for this week. He is pictured above with his daddy. His dad deployed to Iraq for the second time when he was four weeks old. He saw him for R&R for two weeks when Daniel was four months old. Then the day Daniel turned nine months old, I got a knock at my door letting me know that my husband was killed in action. I was suddenly a 21 year old widow with a 9 month old baby. I am still dealing with the effects of this through my son. He is still too young to understand today, but he has so many discipline issues. He is very angry, and has become violent with me to the point he has left bruises on me. We are still being passed around from psychiatrist to psychologist and nobody can really help him. The doctors only see that he is ADHD and say he is a typical four year old. It breaks my heart because he will be five next year, and I know his personality is starting to become permanent. I’m not giving up on him living a somewhat normal life. My parents have compensated for this loss by spoiling him and spending as much time with him as they can. He also has a step-dad now whom Daniel calls Father.
I chose to look into our own country the USA for this week. We have spent almost the last decade fighting the Iraq War and now Afghanistan. There are so many military children today that have either one or both parents serving abroad for up to 15 months at a time. We are just now beginning to see the effects on the children. I read two articles by Lawrence Hardy. The first one was entitled, “Children of the Wars.” Hardy talked about one Elementary School in particular that had more than half its students with deployed parents. The children constantly asked the adults when daddy was coming home or if he was. (Hardy 2008). Teachers also saw signs of behavior problems, lack of attention, and grades slip. Hardy says the best thing you can do is talk about it with your children. I also read, “When Kids Lose Parents in Our War in Iraq.” It took me a few days to read this for obvious reasons. Hardy talked about a school counselor who had to go speak to the classroom full of little children and somehow share that one of their classmates lost a daddy today. The children responded, “Will my dad be ok?” (Hardy 2006). Hardy also mentioned that today is not like back in the day. We have parents doing five or more deployments. There is one school that counselors decided to take action and form a Kit Kat group. The acronyms stand for Keeping in Touch, Kids and Troops. This group gets together sends pictures, and writes letters to the deployed parents. I have decided when we get back to the states and I have my own classroom again, I plan to do this as well. There is no greater joy than helping someone else.
References:
Hardy, L. (2006). When Kids Lose Parents in Our War in Iraq. Education Digest, 72(4), 10-12. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database.
Hardy, L. (2008). Children of the Wars. American School Board Journal, 195(5), 24-27. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database.
Thank you for sharing your personal experience of having to deal with the effects of war in the development of your child. It must be hard to cope with the loss of a love one and also the effects it causes in your children. As you mentioned bevarior is one of the firt signs of distress chldren express with the obsence of a parent. They might not understand the details of why they are gone, but they do feel the absence as well as the stress among the people around them because to the absence of the parent.
ReplyDeleteI wish you and your child the best, that you might get the necesarry support to help your child cope with the loss and be able to live a normal life.
Stacey, Thank you for posting such a delicate topic that you are dealing with. I can not imagine that loss. My brother is a Marine and my father was a Vietnam Veteran. The military does an amazing service for our country. My close friend is an Army wife and she has been everywhere - primarily Germany, the states, and is currently in Fort Drum. She has struggled with her husband's deployments, especially her 12 year old daughter who is a daddy's girl. She particularly struggles and sees a counselor. I wish you and your family the best and hopes your child gets the necessary help.
ReplyDeleteYou are so right that there is no greater joy than helping someone else. What an incredibly human act, to use a personally tragic experience to help others in the same place! There is no greater therapeutic remedy, either, in my humble opinion. Service to others works wonders for me!
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