Operation: Homefront

Here's another book I've run across that might make a good read for younger teens. Caroline Cooney wrote Operation: Homefront  (Laurel-Leaf Books, 1992) soon after the 1991 Gulf War. I’m not familiar with her work but I have been told that her books are hilarious at the same time they touch on serious issues. This one is about the Herrick family, whose mom joins the National Guard to earn some extra money, never thinking she will be called up.  When the first Gulf War starts, her unit is sent to Saudi Arabia as part of Operation Desert Shield. 

Joining the National Guard was seen as a joke by her rather spoiled, middle class family, but deployment is no joke.  They go through all the emotions and stresses any military family would, After the mother leaves, the family worries as they compulsively watch the news,  and their family falls apart until they realize their well being rests on all their shoulders now. By the end of the book they have come together and grown to see their mother is a different light as someone who has a life apart from her children, and plays a larger part in theirs than they had realized. 

School Library Journal applauds Cooney for dealing well with the role of women in modern warfare and its impact  “This is a tightly written story that moves quickly, giving lots of information about the war, its background, and its outcome, as well as offering a family story of struggle and survival,” it says. 

Making the Grade

Here’s a great idea!  The Army and Air Force Exchange at Fort Gordon in Georgia has a program, now in its tenth year, called “You Made the Grade. The program recognizes students stationed at Fort Gordon  who achieve a “B” average or better in school, by awarding them a booklet filled with fun benefits. Recipients get a free Burger King kids meal, video rental, a discount on any new release DVD at a local store, and other appealing things.

There also a chance at one big thing. The packet includes an entry form for a drawing to win a savings bond worth up to $5,000.  That is no small thing, certainly, for if the bond is earmarked for college, winning it could have an important effect on a child’s aspirations. 

Military children, especially those with deployed parents, are at greater risk of school absenteeism and failure, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.   “Promoting the benefits of a good education is what makes this program so important to us and the community we serve,” says Sheila Miller, the Gordon Exchange Manager. “This effort represents an investment in our nation’s future.”

To receive the “You Made the Grade” booklet, students need only present a valid military ID card and proof of an overall “B” or better average to the Exchange. Students may receive one coupon package for every qualifying report card, and enter the drawing for the savings bond once per calendar year.

On Bullies

As I reported yesterday, national studies show that 32 percent of students ages 12 to 18 have experienced being bullied in school. Almost a full third if children say they have been made fun of, became the subject of rumors or were physically assailed by being pushed shoved, tripped or spit on. However, only a minority, about a third, told an adult. Are military children at increased risk, because they are so frequently the new kids in school?  The Department of Defense clearly thinks so, because they have partnered with other federal agencies in a task force to address the issue. 

Bullying has always been a part of childhood, but an epidemic of incivility and intolerance seems to have taken hold in many schools. “For those of us who work with kids in schools, we don’t want children to be humiliated and embarrassed and have to ‘put up with it. It’s against the law, and it’s not OK,” says Patricia Cassiday, director of pupil personnel services for the Department of Defense Education Activity. DoDEA oversees schools for military children here and overseas.

Three groups of people are part of the dynamic of bullying--the bullies, the victims, and the bystanders.  Approaches that focus on getting bullies to change or victims to report the abuse are less likely to be successful, Cassiday feels, unless the third group feels empowered. “We stress the importance of students supporting each other and saying, ‘Not in our school,’” Cassiday says in Elaine Wilson’s recent article for the American Forces Press Service, “DOD Takes Steps to Stop Bullying” (see link in yesterday’s post).

 DoDEA’s school officials encourage the victim to speak up, but in a way that won’t make the situation worse. Children do need to be assertive, to affirm what they want (which is in this case, of course, is for the bully to leave them alone), but I can’t think of too many times in my own life when that would have helped.

The psychology of bullying must be very powerful.  Presumably the bully is overtaken by some kind of rush he or she can’t control. Advising children to tell their tormenter that they will report the behavior if he or she doesn’t stop is a bit scary.  When the authority figure is not physically present, their power is unlikely to cause a bully to step back and reconsider, and may cause more immediate punishment “Tattletale!” I can picture the taunts. 

 These kinds of advice seem a bit too easy and pat for me, a bit like Nancy Reagan’s famous dictum for addressing drug use among young people.  “Just say no” doesn’t go far when a powerful web of human behaviors and frailties are on full display.

If the bullying is reported, children are encouraged by the DoDEA to sit down with the bully and a counselor to discuss the situation, or the counselor can meet with the bully alone if the victim doesn’t wish to attend. The important thing is for the bully to understand that sweet talk and shallow promises don’t cut it.  Another infraction and the consequences will be severe. The bully also has to be treated sensitively, not as a bad person no one can understand, but as someone who has choices and has been making bad ones.

Physical violence is another matter, Cassiday says. In those cases, immediate disciplinary action must be taken. That includes the victim too. if he or she decides to honor the age-old parental dictum to fight back.  “It’s tough for schools to know who is to blame if both are involved,” Cassiday explains.

Cassiday also advises that parents can take the situation in hand themselves by going to the bully’s parents, but this has to be done in a non-confrontational way. Parents should assume (or pretend to at least) that the bully’s parent (or parents) is not aware of the problem, will be embarrassed and alarmed by it, and will speak to the child about changing his or her ways. 

The Defense Department is working with children and youth services managers to highlight cyberbullying as well. The Defense Department’s Military OneSource site at http://www.militaryonesource.com offers free online resources and printed materials to help parents and children deal with bullying of any kind. The Defense Department will continue its efforts to shed light on the pervasive problem, not just for military children, but for all children.  

Bullying is sad all around.  The child who does it is wounded too.  If repeated deployments or anything else about military life contribute to the making of bullies, that needs to be addressed, because what happens to both the bullied and the bully may shape the rest of their lives.

The Perils of Being the New Kid

In the small California town where I grew up in the 1950s, a few unkind children made life briefly unpleasant but didn’t have much effect overall on the dynamic of my time at school.  In my early teens, school settled in the typical pattern of a small group of popular kids who ignored the rest of us.  I was fortunate enough to go to a high school where ostracism was rare and had at least some connection to what a person did or said. In situations where the grudge was personal, it didn’t spread to infect the rest of the class.

It seems our country has been overtaken by a mean-spiritedness visible every day not just in the corridors of schools, but the corridors of power. It seems as if it’s grown acceptable simply not to like others, and worse, to act on it. 

When school becomes a nightmare, battered self-esteem, depression and fear set in, sometimes leaving vulnerable young people feeling there is no solution but to die.  That has happened at the hand of school bullies several times in the last year. According to national statistics, about 32 percent of students ages 12 to 18 report being bullied in school. Typical this consists of being  shoved, tripped or spit on; or being the subject of rumors or generally made fun of. Only about a third of the victims told a teacher or other authority about it.

Complicating the matter, as we all know, is the fact that bullies now have the internet as a platform for their viciousness. Bullies libel classmates on Facebook and Twitter, and through text messages and e-mail,  and post embarrassing photos online. In a survey on WiredSafety.org, almost half of the respondents said they’d been “cyberbullied” before, and more than half had a friend who had gotten such treatment.

When I was young I couldn’t imagine how anyone could possibly live to be thirty, much less eighty--look at how many days, weeks, months that would take! I was pretty happy with my life overall, but when things were tough, it was hard to convince myself that whatever I was experiencing at the time wasn’t going to characterize the rest of my life. The future loomed ahead like a thick, black cloud during the bad times, and I believed that whatever I didn’t like about myself would stick to me like tar forever.  It's painful to think of how much darker some children must think their future is.

 Military children are known for their adaptability, but in this new environment being the new kid in school may make them particularly susceptible to bullying, especially in schools where classmates have been bonding since kindergarten. A concerned Department of Defense recently joined with four other departments of our national government to create a federal task force on school bullying. in an article “DOD Takes Steps to Stop Bullying,” by Elaine WIlson of the American Forces Press Service, Barbara Thompson, director of the Pentagon’s office of family policy, children and youth,  says that “it’s gotten the attention of the country just how invasive any type of bullying is to the well-being of a victim.” 

Wilson’s article is lengthy, and I will write more about it tomorrow.  For now, I encourage readers to take the time to watch this video about bullying in schools. It’s made by Tony Bartoli, a motivational speaker, and though I’m not endorsing him specifically, this is worth watching for the sobering statistics he presents.

Love and Laundry

What happens to a family when both parents are off serving their country? It does happen, as the Jamieson family of Virginia can attest. Christina Jamieson is on a fifteen-month deployment, stationed in Bahrain until next summer, and her husband, Ray, is currently assigned out-of-state with the Defense Department. In her article, “Four Families Serve a Military Duty,” journalist Cortney Langley describes the solution the Jamiesons managed to work out for their four children.

The family of Katie Rauschwarg, tenth-grader Coral Jamieson’s best friend, has taken Coral in for fifteen months. The Rauschwargs wanted to take all four children , but since they have four of their own and one bathroom, mom Michele Rauchwarg says with good humor, “I could not do that to a good friend!”  Michele and Christina became friends as lunch duty volunteers at a local school, an example of how helping others can benefit oneself in unusual and unimaginable ways. 

Thirteen-year-old R.J. Jamieson is also living with his best friend, Mark Cavazos. Twin 9-year-olds Chase and Pierce Jamieson are living at home with Ray’s mother, Mischelle Jamieson, who came from Orlando to care for them and the family dog. A fourth couple, Robin and Mark Gardner, also are on board to help out in whatever way is needed.  The family keeps in contact through Skype, e-mail, text, Facebook, chat programs, telephone and “even snail mailing.”

Michele, Diana, and Robin have become good friends, advising each other and comparing notes.  Discipline was difficult at first because different families have different expectations, but the Jamieson children are now treated like any other member of their temporary family. 

“Some people judge Christina poorly for being in the service, as if she’s betraying her family,” author Langley says. “But people don’t judge military fathers by the same standard.”

“The difference with Michele, Diane and Robin,” Christina Jamieson told Langley on a recent leave at home with her family, “is that they never made me feel less of a mother, always had the standing-by-to-help attitude and even helped when I never even asked....They love my children as if they were their own.” 

After eighteen years of service, Christina plans to retire soon and go to law school. “I love my country so very much, I love my family so much and I love these families so much, and with the help of my ‘community families,’ there is the right balance to make it all work,” she says. “Even though their parents are not at their sides, my kids know they are loved because the right people are in their lives.”  The photo from the Virginia Gazette is of the Jamiesons and their extended "community family."

What are the biggest challenges? “Laundry,” Grandmother Mischelle Jamieson says with a smile.

Honoring the Fallen and Their Families

I’m a baseball fan, and of course have been watching every minute of the World Series.   Last night I saw an ad featuring Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, encouraging people to become part of a volunteer organization called iParticipate.org.

I went to the website for iParticipate this morning and found out that it is a far-reaching and broad-based philanthropic activity sponsored by America’s entertainment industries.  “The Entertainment Industry Foundation,” according to the website, “harnesses the collective power of the industry to raise awareness and fund for critical health, educational and social issues in order to make a positive impact in our community and throughout the nation. People from every facet of the entertainment community – actors and executives; guild and union members; and employees of studios, networks and talent agencies – volunteer their time, talent and services to support our work.”

EIF was founded 67 years ago by Samuel Goldwyn and other Hollywood dignitaries, and since then has raised millions of dollars for cancer research and prevention, diabetes awareness, education and creative arts, and other beneficial causes. The website indicates six main areas of support, one of which is military families.

In particular, they support two service organizations specifically focused on military families.  One, Blue Star Families, is very well known, but the other was new to me. The Mission Continues “honors fallen veterans through Veterans Tributes, where volunteers learn about the fallen veteran’s life and legacy, perform community service in his or her honor, and write a letter to the veteran's family,” according to EIF. “Volunteer opportunities include care package drives, park clean ups, and other meaningful acts of service.”

It is heartening to see that the needs of military families are being so broadly recognized.  It does seem as if awareness builds more awareness, and this morning as I write it indeed does seem possible that we could become a nation where honoring and supporting the families who serve as our nation’s military becomes natural and expected.

'Tis the Season Already?

I don’t know about you, but for me, Thanksgiving is the day after Halloween, Christmas is the day after Thanksgiving, and New Year’s Eve is the day after Christmas. Time moves so fast this time of year, and though I am no longer a mom trying to live up to everyone’s expectations and fantasies, it still feels like a whirlwind every year.

Halloween seems like a good point to talk about the upcoming holidays. “Supporting Young Children During the Holidays,” an article I found on the Zero to Three website has advice targeted towards parents and caregivers for children with deployed parents, although much of the advice is good for anyone.

For families with a deployed servicemember, the holidays may be especially challenging, making everyone more keenly aware that the mother or father is not home to share in the celebration. Though we often think of babies and toddlers as being too young to understand, they take their cues from the people around them and can become upset for reasons they can’t articulate.

The article uses the acronym SEASON for its advice.

S is for structure and routine
For young children, knowing what to expect is critical. Although change and disruption is inevitable during the holidays, parents should do their best to keep up with familiar routines.

E is for expectations
The holiday season can bring with it some high, often unreasonable expectations, especially when the word “joy” seems to be everywhere. Having a servicemember deployed is not joyous. Spouses and older children may be sad, lonely, anxious, guilty about having fun or about not being able to make up for the absence, or resentful at having to do everything alone. Those who have relocated recently may not yet have made friends they care about and feel comfortable with at social gatherings. The article warns that such things can’t be rushed, and a feeling of dislocation may just have to be endured. “It is important that military parents create this social support network at their own pace and not place additional pressure on themselves. A new year’s resolution to engage in more social activities, for example, can be fulfilled throughout the year and make next year’s holidays that much more enjoyable.” The article concludes that “There is no right way to feel. Parents and caregivers should take great pride in knowing that they are doing the best that they can under very challenging circumstances.

A is for awareness Parents and caregivers who understand the connection between stress and behavior will be able to pick up on signs that their little ones are having a hard time. Increased irritability, sleep changes, clinginess, and other such behaviors are clues that something is bothering the child.

S is for Self-Care
It’s hard sometimes to remember one’s own needs during the holiday season, when the focus is on children and creating a good holiday experience for others. “Self-care activities may include: taking naps whenever possible; seeing supportive friends or family; gardening; reading; playing basketball; journaling; taking walks; or going to a baseball game with buddies. Parents and caregivers who support themselves are, ultimately, supporting their families by increasing their capacity to provide loving, nurturing environments for themselves and for their children.” It is also important to seek professional help if the holidays are too difficult to handle emotionally.

O is for opportunity

The holiday season can provide special opportunities to create some additional rituals or routines that keep the military parent “present’ or involved during the holidays. Some ideas in the article include having the active duty parent send a number of letters in advance to the child, to be opened and read on each of the 12 days of Christmas or during each day of Hanukkah or Kwanzaa. At-home parents can record their children singing holiday songs and send it to the deployed parent. The family can create a holiday ornament that says “mommy” or “daddy” in honor of the military parent and hang it on the tree, or perhaps hang a stocking and fill it with homemade gifts to send after Christmas, or just before. I love the suggestion that children create a paper Chanukah menorah or Kwanzaa kinara and cut out the appropriate number of paper flames. These can then be sent to the active duty parent, who will glue a flame on each day that a candle is to be lit and take a picture of him or herself with the “lit” menorah or kinara to send back to the child. It seems to me it should be easy to adapt this for other children--perhaps paper ornaments on a tree, or a manger scene, or Santa and his reindeer.

N is for 'nesting'
It’s a good idea to see the home as a retreat, not the center of the whirlwind. “A young child can look forward to watching the holiday candles being lit, taking a bath, having a holiday book read, listening to quiet holiday music, kissing a picture of the absent parent, and then drifting off to bed. Parents, too, can see this “nesting” time as an opportunity to break free from daily stress, enjoy special moments with their young children, and refuel for the next day.”

Whew! I am tired just thinking about the holidays! For those of us in the 98 percent unaffected by deployment, let’s try to do something for the other 2 percent before the end of this year, which is, by my calculation, 4 days from now!