Other Kids Serve Too

I recently learned that a program called Camp Desert Kids was coming to Camp Pendleton, near my home. This Families United program was developed to help young children understand on their own level the place to which Mom or Dad has deployed. At Camp Desert Kids, participants (both children and the homefront parent) experience the deployed parent’s service location in a way that is both fun and educational. 

They learn that Iraqi and Afghan children are in many way the same, although they do many day to day things differently. I remember when I was the age of these children, the way to get my attention was to talk about kids from another culture--what they ate, how they dressed, what games they played, what songs they sang, what their words were for different things. The camp approaches the children on this level, as well as specifically focusing on the aspects of deployment that would be most interesting to a child, like being inside a tent and dressing up in camouflage.


This sounds like a great way to reduce the anxiety in military children by making them feel they know a little more about what is going on with their absent parent.  Here’s a video about the camp.