Q:
Your husband is deploying overseas for six months. How do you prepare your young kids?
Parent advice:
Network with other parents in the same situation with children of similar ages and have regular play dates. Talking regularly with others who know what you’re going through will help.
— Marie Grass Amenta
When my husband is gone for weeks at a time with the Air Force, my daughter makes a chain-link out of paper. Each day when she rips one off, she sees the chain getting shorter.
— Shannon Keibler
Have Dad take stories with him and read to them on Skype while they follow along. Send Dad an e-mail photo daily of the kids holding a sign: “88 days until Daddy hugs me.” “87 days until Daddy can play catch.” “86 days until I can snuggle Daddy,” etc. And Daddy can send similar pictures back. Before he goes, Dad could make a Build-A-Bear with a voice message inside so they can hear him whenever they want.
— Autumn Vergeldt
Purchase a camera for your personal computer so your children can video chat with your husband. Schedule a time each week for this to help reassure your children that their dad will be accessible.
— Dawn Lantero
Expert advice:
“Kids are primarily self-centered,” says child and family psychotherapist Fran Walfish, author of “The Self-Aware Parent: Resolving Conflict and Building a Better Bond With Your Child” (Palgrave Macmillan, $17). “But in this situation, they’re going to worry most about Dad’s safety and well-being.”
The job of the at-home parent is to alleviate those fears and keep life as normal as possible. Walfish recommends the following steps.
Three to four weeks before the departure date, both parents should sit down with the children to tell them the news. “You want to give them enough time to help them process the news without overloading them with anxiety. Six months is a very long absence. It’s not fair to give them only three or four days.”
Give them some realistic, but not scary, scenarios. “Dad should describe a (normal) experience they can imagine him doing. ‘We’re going to get up and exercise and have breakfast. Then I’ll walk to the showers.’ Children will already have their imaginations going wild. If you can describe a routine that sounds similar to theirs at home, that will really help.”
If possible, establish a way to keep in regular contact. “A phone call or e-mail, particularly at a time the children can expect — say, every Sunday morning at 10 a.m. — helps them trust that Dad is OK and will come back. If phones and Skype are not possible, it’s really helpful if Dad can write letters to each child once a week — just short and sweet, ‘Thinking of you. Missing you. Thought of you when I saw some pretty rocks on the beach.'”
Give each child one of his unlaundered T-shirts, “something (they) can hold on to that smells like Daddy and can comfort them when they’re missing him.”
Expect some sleep disruption and behavior changes. “For the parent remaining behind, maintaining consistent routines, boundaries, rewards and consequences is extremely important. You may … want to collapse a little on the boundaries, but kids thrive and feel a sense of security when life doesn’t change along with the big change of Dad leaving.”
Encourage the kids to talk about their feelings. “Mom should let the children know she’s available any time feelings come up — sadness, loneliness, worry, anger. Some kids are not as suffering and sad in their presentation and some kids are going to tug on you and demand of you. Mom has to understand it’s their incredible missing of the other parent and their lack of ability to identify or say that. She may have to help them by saying it for them.”
Mom should try to carve out some time for herself. “You have to take care of yourself in order to take care of others.”
Compiled by Heidi Stevens, Tribune Newspapers
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