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My kids coped pretty well. There was one activity they did before and during deployment that helped them both with self esteem, confidence, and overall good attitude and that was martial arts. We had a very nice Sensei who was an older family man and they had a great program for young kids. It was several times a week. If you can find a program run by a man who seems kind but authoritative, and is good with kids, sometimes having the adult male presence in their lives, the role-model, goes hand-in-hand with the entire program just being super-healthy. I only wish that I had enrolled in classes too, I could have used the exercise! But to the point, this activity makes kids feel strong and empowered, not to mention awesome. It helps them cope with all kinds of stuff. And oddly enough, you'd think they'd become more violent with learning the fighting techniques, but they don't.
Also here is an idea: Give your son a camera and have him take pictures to send to Dad. You could even send them digitally (by email or whatever) and he can look at them and give his reactions while you're on a Skype call or something. Pretty cool.
There was one activity they did before and during deployment that helped them both with self esteem, confidence, and overall good attitude and that was martial arts.
Excellent idea. We did not have the opportunity for that when I deployed... But we were able to do that with three of our grandchildren. We could see the difference...
First off I would say that anything that relieves your stress will help the kids deal with theirs. As a soon to be temporarily single parent some of the normal things will get done around the house, other stuff may not get done as quickly.
One thing I would do is let your kids' teachers know about what's going on so they have a heads up for out of the ordinary type of behavior from your kids.
My unit had a policy of assigning people to check in on the families of deployed personnel every so often. Not that my wife asked for help very often but it was nice to know that in an emergency she had someone she could call. I'll never forget one time we had a tornado touch down in the community and the next day me and some of the guys were out removing a trampoline from the roof of a two story house and picking up debris - one less thing for the deployed unit member to worry about and the spouse was able to get the household back to normal sooner rather than later.
You did cast a narrow net. You are on the wrong forum for military spouse support. I've been a air force spouse for the past 13 years and my advice to you is since your soldier is in the reserves, go to his deploying base and seek services from the family readiness center. There should be some kind of info in his deployment package providing information for you as well. At least in the AF we were able to attend certain deployment briefings and were provided with items to ease the transition.
On a personal level, you just have to talk to your kids and insure them that their parent will be safe (no child wants to hear that their parent could possibly not come home). Now-a-days with all of the internet technology, it's as if the deployed spouse is just out of town. When my spouse last deployed (about 5 years ago), we were talking at least twice a week via internet. Things have changed dramatically! When we first married I'd have to wait hours by the phone and now...you might get a text.
It's also best to keep the kid busy (and yourself) and have him write lots of letters (another bonus to improve his writing skills) to his parent about what he's doing while he is away. I thought with each deployment, it would get easier. But it actually got harder. It definitely builds character and mettle.
My stepdaughter's husband was deployed 5 times after Desert Storm. He's now retired from the Air Force. The one thing that bothered him is he missed watching his 3 kids growing up. But in talking with them, they say it's not as bad as it used to be with computers and everything. Sure the kids miss having him around but they can talk to him just about every night and with Skype and all the other programs they can see him while talking to him. He even helped one of his with homework. Mom scanned it and emailed to Dad. Dad got on video chat with daughter and worked on the homework for quite a while. After the first deployment it didn't seem to bother the kids as much. "Hey, kids. Looks like I'm deploying again." "How long?" "A year." "OK Dad". And that's it.
Skater, I know I'm not a mom, but my wife talked with her daughter every day he was deployed and they talked about everything so we just about felt like we were living there with them.
Good luck with the boys, I imagine they'll do just fine. May take a little while but they'll adjust. And tell Hubby thanks for serving!
My husband is a Marine who has deployed 4 times (and left on missions or trainings countless other times) and we have 3 kids. I know you posted this a while ago, but if you still need help let me know. I always approached it matter-of-factly with my kids. We talk about where daddy is going, why he is going, and what we can do to help him (hold down the fort at home, put together care packages, share about what is going on with us etc). The biggest thing you can do is to be strong and to not let their lives stop because daddy isn't there. It can feel guilty to keep going on and to have fun while he is so far away, but it is important for the kids. For us we would sometimes go 1-2 months without hearing from my husband because of what he did, but we always made sure to be ready when we did finally hear from him again. I only ever missed one phone call.
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