This is a crazy life for kids. Dad is home, then he is not. We live in one house then move to another and then another. They have to say goodbye to friends more often than others. They are those cousins the family sees once every few years. It can be hard and frustrating but also exciting and filled with new experiences. Ben re-joined the military when our oldest was just 13 months old. Pretty much all of my parenting has been done as a military family. In the past five and a half years Ben has been gone 36 months or three years total. That is a crazy amount of time for dad to be away from his kids. But it just is what it is.
Because of the military we moved to Germany when my oldest was 18 months old. We had our second over there and left when they were 3 & 5 years old. During that time we did get to see a lot of really sweet places. We saw castles, rode on trains, went on a cruise and saw many famous places. Not sure how much they will remember from those years but I hope it is a lot. We tried Space-A and they got to experience traveling in military planes. There was a moment during that trip when we stepped out of the airplane in Newfoundland. It was 3am and I was holding each one by the hand as we walked out on the runaway into the terminal. I thought to myself, “wow…are we really walking in Canada right now? This is amazing!” I have had quite a few of those moments over the years.
Homecomings can be pretty special for kids. During our last deployment Ben came back for R&R while we were visiting in California. I went to pick him up while my parents watched the boys for us. The next morning we came back to their house. Ben went to the backyard and I told the boys I had a present for them out in the yard. It was awesome to see my oldest run up to him with a big old smile on his face. His brother took a little bit longer to warm up to Ben but I knew he was happy to see him too.
It is very hard to deal with the sadness and hurt they feel over Ben being away. I think my four-year old is struggling with this a little bit and I am not sure how to really help him. If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them. He says he is mad that Daddy isn’t home yet.
Another thing that makes me sad is that it is so hard for us to visit our family. It is really so expensive to fly us all out that right now it just isn’t an option. It was even worse in Germany. Maybe we do need to get stationed at Ft. Irwin? But because we are not close to family we have to make our friends our family. We get together with them for holidays. We ask them to watch our children. We depend on them for that everyday support.
I try my best to keep things fun, have a lot of activities and keep them busy while Daddy is away. As we count down to homecoming and this deployment being over, I can’t wait to see the looks on their faces when they see their Daddy again 
I won't lie and say kids ever outgrow missing the people they care about, but they can learn to express it better as they get older. My kids are 9 years apart (12 & almost 3). My son survived two of my deployments, a geo-bachelor tour, and shiftwork (I was a single mom, he stayed with my parents) and my husband's 3 and 4 month TDY's. I was surprised that he is still acting out. (But we've gone from anger management/fighting/school suspensions to not turning in any homework for 3 months.) So now I get to deal with two kids acting out in their own ways… joy.
Among the best tips we got to help the kids through deployment was a) You can't force them to miss their loved one less (so validate and accept their feelings and don't feel guilty that you can't keep them from feeling that way), and b) one of the things that bothers kids in military families the most is the feeling that their lives are out of control and they have no say… so each night for a few minutes, let each child pick an activity of their choice that they are in charge of. My son always picks a "family game." My daughter likes to watch movies. We don't have time to watch a full movie every night, but we can usually find 15-30 minutes to play a game of my son's choice while watching a movie of my daughter's choice. Some other ways I let them exercise some "control" is to let my son pick out one or two meals during the week when I'm making my shopping list, and let my daughter help me "pick" the ingredients in the grocery store. (Which bunch of bananas should we get, pick out two tomatoes, watermelon or strawberries, etc.) I also helped them put together care packages for my husband. (He must've thought some of the things they picked out were a little odd, but whatever.)
Also, if you haven't already heard, the Armed Services YMCA has a program called Operation Kid Comfort. They will make photo quilts for small children of deployed parents. I had one made for the 2yo son of a mobilized member of my reserve unit. They did a nice job and it was very sweet to see his reaction to the quilt. Maybe the 4yo might want to help pick out pictures of himself with Dad to put on one of those quilts?
Hopefully that helps a little.
Thanks so much for sharing Mandy! I guess at every stage they might deal with things in different ways. I like the idea of having them choose things. I am going to see if we have the YMCA program around here. That would be so nice.:D
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The last two years we went through back to back deployments. My sons were 2 and almost 4 for the first one and then 3 and almost 5 for the second one. My oldest son would act up and really had a tough time dealing with daddy being gone. We survived the first deployment without too much troubles, but the second deployment was awful from the start because he knew what he was in for and he wanted no part of it.
After the advice of some of my friends, I ordered them both a daddy doll. Don't know if you've seen them, but they are pillows with pictures of daddy on them. I was amazed at the smiles they would give them. When my oldest started acting up at preschool, I asked if my son could pull out his daddy doll for nap time. That seemed to help him a bunch. However, he was still having problems acting up at school. So I actually, scheduled counseling on base for him with Fleet and Family services. That helped a bunch.
I also would check out children deployment books to help him express what he was feeling. Our library was good and if they didn't have the book they would either request it from another library or actually order it. I would read the books to him and it allowed him to put in to words some of the emotions he was struggling with.
Other things I did was attend the support group meetings. We are Navy so we attended a ship meeting. They always had a craft monthly that I would bring the boys to. I think it helped him to see all of the other kids his age going through the same thing.
Also, when my son was particular sad I would ask if he wanted to send daddy a message. I would record him talking and then email to my husband. He liked this a lot. He would even ask questions like, "Have you ever eaten octopus?" And then my husband would answer his question in my email. So I made sure I gave him the answer and he would be so happy. I think because he was then able to communicate with his dad.
Oh, and one last idea. For the 2nd deployment we sent a small stuffed dinosaur with my husband. He would take pictures of the dinosaur doing different things on the ship and then email them. My son LOVED that. So maybe you can mail your husband something of your son's in your next care package. If your husband doesn't have a camera with him, you can mail a disposable one.
Hope these ideas help.
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Julie for our 2nd deployment our oldest son had a really hard time, a lot of sadness and anger. What was advised was get a big pillow and let him hit it, get his frustrations out on it, cry in it, etc. It helped him a great deal (and I even hit it a few times and it was def. helpful in getting out those frustrations!). We also prayed together and I acknowledged his hurts, anger, etc. Praying for you guys, it's not easy…but we know that God is gracious in all situations.
Thank you and that is a really good idea!
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