A Dose of Reality for the Rest of Us

Some people wonder what the fuss is about military children. They have at least one working parent (even if deployed), one parent at home (usually), a roof over their heads, food in their bellies, and something many Americans do not--health insurance.

Bruce Lesley, President of First Focus, a bipartisan advocacy organization dedicated to making children and families a priority in federal policy and budget decisions, has written a superb blog entry in the Huffington Post this morning. In “Our Military Families Under Fire” he and co-author Kate Sylvester, explain why such a view is misguided.

Military parents are for the most part young, near poverty, and coping with many stresses not found in most other families. According to Lesley and Sylvester, over a third of first-time military parents are 21 or younger. Stop for a minute to think about that. Under 21. Over a third.

Military pays starts at around $2,800 a month (including allowances for food and housing). “In the families of junior service members that have only one working parent and more than one child,” Lesley and Sylvester point out, “household incomes often fall below 200 percent of the federal poverty level -- the benchmark that child advocates suggest puts families at risk.” Many children attending DoD schools qualify for free or reduced lunches. 11.6 percent of military families are eligible to apply for Earned Income Tax Credit.

Multiple deployments are another stressor on families. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed out bluntly in a recent Veteran's Day address, "If you took any 11-year-old or younger military child, it's all they've known their whole lives." Why 11 years? That’s how long we’ve been at war. Five years from now, for many American children, it will just be a matter of adjusting their age in that statement, unless something changes.

The National Center for Children in Poverty recently released a study showing that one in five American children has a diagnosable mental health disorder, and that military children have an even higher incidence of emotional and behavioral problems. Just by virtue of being military children, they are now classified with children and youth in low-income households and those in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, as at risk for mental health problems.

Wives with deployed husbands have more mental health issues than those whose husbandsare at home, a study on Army wives published earlier this year in the New England Journal of Medicine tells us. One study shows an alarming 42 percent rise in maltreatment of children during a combat parent's deployment, almost always at the hands of an overburdened, overstressed mother.

Only about half of returning servicemembers affected by PTSD or other mental problems seek help, and a recent Army study indicates that their new state of mind includes negative coping mechanisms such as substance abuse and domestic violence. According to Lesley and Sylvester, spousal abuse or child maltreatment has increased by 177 percent in 6 years.

When military service ends, the problems are just beginning for many young families. March 2010 Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show that unemployment rate for 18- to 24-year-old vets was 21 percent--double that of the general population. Many of these young veterans can't support their families, or realize they won’t be able to before their enlistment is up, and stay in the military for the safety net it provides. This, of course, continues and in many cases aggravates all the issues discussed above.

Serious, serious problems indeed.

An Exceptional Teacher

I’ve talked a lot here about how important sensitive teachers are to the school experiences of military children, whose frequent moves and parental deployment can make life (and learning) difficult.  This week a teacher in San Antonio, Texas provides an example of what these children--and all others--need.  

Charli Mullen, a fifth grade teacher at Fort Sam Houston Elementary School received the KENS 5 SACU Golden Apple ExCEL Award.  KENS5 is a news station in San Antonio; SACU is the credit union co-sponsoring the award.)"I want them to be lifelong learners and to love learning. I am not here to dump things in their head every day. It's an active participation. I tell them I'm here 100 percent (and) I want you to be here 100 percent, and together we are 200 percent and think of all the awesome things we can do with that," Mullen said in her interview on KENS5 (see the link above).

Mullen is especially sensitive to how it feels to have a loved one deployed, because she is experiencing it herself.  Her husband, a Marine Corps officer is currently away on duty. "It makes me understand when they get upset or maybe their hurt feelings turn towards negative behavior. I can deal with it more appropriately," Mullen says.

"She knows how to make learning fun," says on student.  Tellingly, another of her students says, “Of all the seven teachers I've had, Mrs.Mullen is the best one.” Fifth grade, seven teachers.  If this wasn’t your school experience, try to picture starting over more than once a year.  Everyone needs teachers like Charli Mullen, but some students are clearly more vulnerable than others, and we are blessed that she is having such an impact on these few.

With my posts this week about the possible closure of on-base schools, it’s time to think long about attracting more teachers like Mullen to schools serving the children who are serving too.  Follow the link in this post to see this lovely, radiant young woman in action with her students.

Caring for Injured Families

“Injury to a parent is a major threat to children of all ages and a challenge for even the most resilient of military families.”  So says the National Child Traumatic Stress Network in the section of their website devoted to military families. 

The Child and Family Program for the Study of Traumatic Stress (CSTS) is a Category II site of this network. This program conducts research and disseminates information about the impact of combat injury on service members, their families, and children. 

The CSTS program has developed ten Principles of Caring for Combat Injured Families and their Children  to guide the practice of medical and community service providers. The wording of these principles is loaded with jargon, which I will try to cut through here.

  

■■”Psychological first aid” is primary. Providing families with a feeling of safety and comfort, includes providing practical information and connection to available resources so the family can believe in its own effectiveness to handle the situation

■■ Medical care must be family focused. Families must continue to function and communicate and injury care must support this need.

■■ Service providers should anticipate a range of responses to combat injury.  Most service members, their children and families will adjust in time but some may struggle with the consequences to their lives and even require treatment for their own problems.

■■ “Injury communication” is essential. Information should be timely, appropriate and accurate, but also “calibrated to address patient and family anxiety and to sustain hope.”  Families uncertain how and what to tell their children should receive guidance from professionals. 

■■ IInjured family treatment must be age appropriate.

■■ Injured Family care is a long-term commitment, extending all the way through the rehabilitation process. “Interventions must meet the family where it is within the recovery process, recognizing a family’s unique strengths and challenges, as well as anticipate its future needs through transition to a new community or new way-of-life.”

■■ Effective Injured Family care is a group effort. The family, the health care system, and military and civilian community resources are all parts of a collaboration.

■■ Care must be culturally competent. Healthcare and community professionals need cultural and language competence  to work with families, traditional and otherwise, with varying ethnic and religious backgrounds.

■■ Barriers to effective service to the injured family must be addressed.  “A community’s lack of awareness or misunderstanding of the needs of a combat injured family or a family’s reluctance to seek assistance (due to stigmatization) can also limit family intervention and recovery.”

■■ Families, communities and service providers must be knowledgeable. Quality educational materials to address the challenges that confront combat injured families must be accessible. These help families build skills and become empowered to survive and thrive in their changed world. 

All very sensible and for the most part self-evident.  This should provide an excellent checklist for evaluating, and proposing, services to help military families.

Update

Update to today's post:  Here is the itemized draft proposal from the Commission, as relates to the DoD budget:

Apply the overhead savings Secretary Gates has promised to deficit reduction

Freeze federal salaries, bonuses, and other compensation at the Department of Defense for three years

Freeze noncombat military pay at 2011 levels for 3 years

 Double Secretary Gates’ cuts to defense contracting

Reduce procurement by 15 percent

Reduce overseas bases by one-third  

Modernize Tricare, Defense health  

Replace military personnel performing commercial activities with civilians

 Reduce spending on Research, Development, Test & Evaluation by 10 percent

Reduce spending on base support

 Reduce spending on facilities maintenance  

Consolidate the Department of Defense’s retail activities. 

Integrate children of military personnel into local schools in the United States

Apparently the commission isn't aware of the hundred of stories and testimonials that schools aren't yet doing an adequate job of serving military children. Where will the teachers, desks, books, supplies, and classrooms come from, or will they somehow, miraculously, be free?

On-Post Schools in Jeopardy?

A disturbing story hit my inbox this morning about a new study from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.  The eighteen-member commission is due to report to President Obama in December about ways the Department of Defense budget could be cut to address the skyrocketing national debt.   The commission apparently is going to propose cutting or eliminating on-base schools.  The budget for these schools is approximately $1.8 billion.


School closures could have a profound effect on the education of military children.  On-base schools have a number of advantages, including coordinated curriculum and testing, so that a child who transfers from one base to another steps into a familiar curriculum at the same point as his or her classmates.  Post schools also have faculty and staff trained to deal with issues affecting military children, and extracurricular activities have their needs in mind.


If these school are poor quality, or seriously underattended, or problematic in some other way, I might feel differently, but on first learning of this proposal, I was stunned by the heartlessness of it.  Military children pay such a price for their parents' service, and concerns for their welfare are increasingly well-documented and justified. To take something away from military children is the opposite of saying thank you. It also will simply shift burdens to public schools and services, eliminating nothing in the end.  It is likely to be a false savings and possibly a very true loss.  I will write more as I learn details.  Please post a comment if you have any information.

Dancing Through Deployment

I’ve written before about the program Our Military Kids (a link appears lower right on this page), but here is a heartening video about one family it is helping.  Six-year-old Brooklynn Hammond’s father is part of a reserve unit deployed for a year to the Middle East.  She lives in Eastern Idaho, away from many of the support services available to other military families.  Her mother applied for a grant to pay for ballet lessons for Brooklynn, and she was recently filmed by a local television station as her class prepared for their holiday production of "The Nutcracker.”  The video is so precious, it will warm your heart.

Our Military Kids, founded in 2004, provides many services to children of National Guard and Military Reserves, including scholarships for sports, arts and tutoring to help children through the deployment. Brooklynn’s father, Sergeant Blake Hammond, is on his first tour to the Middle East with the 116th cavalry brigade combat team.  He will be gone a year.  Brooklynn has a younger brother, still a toddler.  With the support of other groups. like United Through Reading, which I profiled yesterday,  the Hammond family can stay strong and unified through this difficult time.  

Happy Holidays, Brooklynn!  We're proud of you, your mom and brother, and your dad.

Stock photo of little ballerinas

  

Uniting Families Through Reading

“Children become readers on the laps of their parents.”  I heard this sentiment last evening at the Storybook Ball, the annual fundraising gala for United Through Reading. But what if one of those laps is halfway around the world?  

I’ve written here before about the great work United Through Reading does for families of deployed servicemembers.  It works with the USO here and around the world to give fathers and mothers a chance to read to their children.  Servicemembers are videotaped reading their choice of story from the library maintained at the USO post, and then the videotape is mailed by United Through Reading to the child or children.  It’s a simple idea but a very effective one. Here’s a video explaining the program. 

http://www.unitedthroughreading.org/about/video.php

Last night we heard testimonials from some of the many affected by United Through Reading.  Particularly touching were the images and stories of very young children--photos of them kissing the television screen while their parent was reading, or in the case of a little girl only five months old when her father deployed, recognizing him immediately when he came home at last. Another wonderful story is that of a teenager whose father was going to miss her high school graduation.  He recorded the children’s book “The Places You’ll Go” for her, and made a treasured memory of a painful time.  

Sometimes the memories created by United Through Reading are bittersweet.  One woman wrote to say that a new DVD arrived a few days after they had received word the father who had made the recording was missing in action.  They watched it not knowing whether he was alive or dead.  Within a few minutes, they received the dreaded knock on the door.  The “I love you” at the end of the recording had been his chance to say goodbye.

Founder Betty J. Mohlenbrock was a young mother and the military wife of a flight surgeon deployed during the Vietnam War. The consequences of her husband’s absence on their two-year-old daughter was made clear to her when her husband returned from duty and their little girl did not recognize him. A teacher and reading specialist, Betty founded United Through Reading in 1989. Since then, over one million children, parents and others have participated.

Support for United Through Reading comes primarily from private sources, and over 80% of the funds go directly to program expenses. It has the highest possible rating, four stars, from Charity Navigator, and it is a member of both the Combined Federal Campaign and the Better Business Bureau.  It has received the Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation, the Newman's Own Award, the James Patterson's PageTurner Award, San Diego Military Advisory Council Achievement Award, the Kaleidoscope Award for Exceptional Board Governance, and the Innovations in Reading Prize from the National Book Foundation. 

 If you are looking for a way to share the burden of our wars and would like to donate or volunteer, please call 858-481-7323 or go online to info@unitedthroughreading.org.   

Just Don’t Humiliate Yourself, Vivian

Photo Credit: Rachel, JRB Youth

A Backpack Journalist  is a fabulous program which encourages and assists military children to find their voices through creative writing.  I found this story on their site today, describing in her own words what a middle-schooler named Vivian felt like on her first day (in March!) in a new school.

Just don’t humiliate yourself today, Vivian. I mutter to myself as I nervously make my way down to the bus.

I step onto the bus. A whole bunch of unfamiliar strange faces, all gawking at me. Their eyes are like lasers burning holes into my head. I just ignore them quickly, finding a seat.

The whole bus ride is dreadful. Everybody is staring at me, asking me who the heck I am. I don’t want to be rude, but I try to just ignore most of them. They are the least of my worries right now. Besides, I can’t bring myself to speak words. I’m too nervous and shy.

***

T he moment I have been dreading for days is here. We have finally arrived at Trinity Springs Middle School.

I head straight to the office to get my schedule. It’s not yet time for school to start, so I explore the place. I notice that almost everybody has their little clique of friends that they stay together with.

That’s just great.

It’s March.

In the middle of the second semester.

Of course, everybody’s already chosen their friends. Which means it will be harder for me to make friends. I immediately wish I could be at home in my warm, cozy bed.

The bell rings. Time for first period.

I look at my schedule. Science- Room E112. I head upstairs, weaving in and out of the other students.

E112, E112, E112, where is E112?

I can’t find the room. I’m lost. Passing period is almost over. I scope through the hallways at least looking for the letter E somewhere.

But no E112.

Great. I’m going to be late to first period on my first day at a new school. I’m sure I look like a helpless loser trying to find a stupid classroom. The bell rings.

CRAP!

I AM late. Perfect.

I finally find the classroom about five minutes later. Palms sweating, heart racing, I grip the handle and open the door. I see I’ve interrupted the class. Every single head in the room immediately turns to me. I see the lasers again.

I ignore them and walk up to the teacher. She seems to be expecting me. She tells me to go find an empty seat. In my head, I gratefully thank her for not forcing me to introduce myself to the class.

The teacher begins the lesson of the day. I copy what everyone else is doing trying to look like I know what to do. I don’t want to look like an idiot on my first day, so I at least try to pay attention.

***

I make it through the next three periods, ignoring all the gawking and quiet whispers. When lunch time comes, I congratulate myself for making it through the morning without totally humiliating myself.

Lunch time. My next challenge.

The office had sent someone to show me the routine and help me through the lunch line. She even offered me to sit at her table with her friends.

I sit and try to enjoy lunch, and hopefully make a couple new friends.

***

The bell rings and it’s time for the last two periods of the day. Theatre Arts, and Art class — two of my favorite things, so I am feeling a little more confident.

I walk into the classroom, getting used to the routine of the head turning and staring. I introduce myself to the teacher. She’s short and friendly looking in the face.

“Just find a seat somewhere,” she tells me.

***

The bell rings. Time for the last period of the day. Art class — the class I am most looking forward to. Art is the one thing that can help me escape all of the other awful drama and gossip.

Before I know it, the bell rings one last time, and school is out for the day.

I survive my first day at Trinity Springs Middle School.