TPC-Digests-V1-Issues-123

A b s t r a c t Increasingly, mental health professionals are providing counseling services to military families. Military parents often struggle with child-rearing issues and experience difficulty meeting the fundamental needs for trust and safety among their children because they are consumed with stress and their own needs. Military family dynamics and parenting styles are explored and counseling strategies are presented. March 8th, 2011 Lynn K. Hall Developmentally, many military parents who are struggling with child-rearing issues have difficulty meeting the fundamental needs for trust and safety for their children because they are consumed with their own needs. Stoicism in the military, or the need to be ready, maintain the face of a healthy family, and do what is expected without showing discontent or dissatisfaction is an important dynamic. A second critical dynamic is secrecy, or not allowing what happens in the family, impact the military parent’s career. A third dynamic of denial is present in most military families as they make numerous transitions and experience issues like deployment of the service member. In order to survive, the non-military parent and children often deny the emotional aspect of these transitions, as well as more “normal” developmental transitions. In many parent-focused military families, particularly when there is a child who is acting out or in other ways exhibiting behavior problems, these three dynamics often lead to other characteristics such as the belief that the child is the problem, rather than the child may have a problem. H elping M ilitary F amilies C ope TPC Digest Go To Article