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It is an honor to be a parent of a United States soldier, they volunteered to fight for our country and you should be very proud of them.
That being said, you, like most parents out there, probably have many emotional and mixed feelings about a current or upcoming deployment. It is easy to start feeling helpless when your son or daughter gets deployment orders. You may feel like there is nothing you can do.
We put together the best tips and advice on how to support your child while he or she is deployed. They deserve all the support they can get!
Do not guilt your soldier or scold your soldier for their decision to join the service. Even if you disagree or did not want your son or daughter to join, once they have joined you need to move forward and they need your unwavering support. Often parents feel an urge to say a soldier shouldn’t have joined when they get deployed. This is sending the wrong message. You want to send a message of support and pride.
Family welcomes home a soldier, a brother and a son
During deployment ask if their spouse need anything, communicate with their spouse about information and try to let their spouse lead the way on homecoming and other arrangements. Feel free to politely offer to help. It is hard to let a newer spouse take the reins for your son or daughter but remember that this is the person your son or daughter is choosing to spend their lives with. Supporting your son or daughter’s spouse is one of the best ways to support your soldier.
Each military branch has a liaison for families that remains stateside. If your child doesn’t have this readily available, you should be able to get any information you need from the main web site for their branch. Since the military doesn’t readily inform parents, as they do spouses, you may have to search and ask questions.
Find out how you can talk to your son or daughter as soon as possible. If you have never used facebook or skype, learn it ASAP if you wanted to be updated as much as possible. But also be prepared for little or no communication at times. They will contact you as much as they possibly can, but sometimes that is not very often, and it is never often enough for those of us at home!
Because there is no database of military parents and fewer groups for parents of soldiers you may find it is a little more difficult but it is important for you to have emotional support. You cannot help your son or daughter if you do not take care of yourself. Do not be afraid or too proud to seek out professional help either.
Watching the news, war movies, even joyful homecoming videos can all trigger powerful emotional reactions and some parents decide to limit themselves so not to constantly make themselves upset. (see out earlier article Spare Scare and Face Your Fears)
A handwritten letter is like receiving a piece of someone’s heart and is not replaced by phone calls, email, care packages, or even skype. It is something to hold on to and reread.
It will help you be a positive force in your soldier’s life. It is helpful to write affirmations of positive thoughts and things you are thankful for on a regular basis. If you stay positive it will feel more natural for you to be positive for your soldier.
Petty issues and stresses at home should not burden your soldier. (This is where those positive thoughts come in handy!) You want to make sure you tell him or her what is going on but feel free to skip over unimportant details that may bother them. They will feel helpless knowing about a problem that they cannot possibly fix.
Your son or daughter will not be the same person in many ways. They will have grown up, matured and changed and changed in some ways you may never be able to fully understand. If you spend your time trying to bring back your little boy/girl you will be disappoints. Instead try to see that all change isn’t bad. Accept your son or daughter unconditionally. Meet them where they are.
If you are a Mom or Dad of a deployed soldier, or a soldier who has been deployed, what has helped you the most? What ways can parents support their children that we have left out? Leave us a comment with your suggestions!
Photo thanks to TheNationalGuard via Flickr Creative Commons
24 Comments
Thanks for the information. It is really cool that you have compiled this information. For the most part, I have done just as you have written. My son will be coming home around Christmas. My only concern is if he will be able to visit before he goes to his next duty station. Speaking via email and Skype has been extremely limited, so I am at a quandary. Not sure if he will have time to visit! Thanks.
Proud of my son and all of the military personnel serving our country!
Margot Hall
God Bless your Son, have a wonderful Christmas holiday home with him, Thnak him & you for your sevice.
Sal USAF ’68-’72
One way that I have found is to continue to let him (my son) know that I pray for him and his unit. He doesn’t give me details, just tells me to pray and on my knees I go. Even when he pops into my head at times, I send a little prayer up and I feel closer to him and makes me feel like I am doing something to help him. It also helps me to feel a little better too.
My daughter and son-in-law are both serving overseas. I support them both and their all of their battles. I have even adopted two son’s and keep tabs on them via facebook and skype. I have been doing all of these 10 suggestions and more to stand behind my daughters decision. Even now, as she is expecting my first grandson, we are discussing her re-enlistment. It is taken an act of GOD for me to find the positive in her re-enlisting but I will stand behind her and my son-in-law what ever they decide. The one thing I did after my daughter got married and she got pregnant, I started saving for my trip to S. Korea to see my grandbaby. She couldn’t come home til after the babies birth so I had to be there for her. I support our troops and I am proud of all my Army son’s and daughters!!!
Sorry this may not be uplifting, however it is what is truly said amongst the military folks.
Time for her to face up to life and come home and not re-enlistment. It is time to decide what she wants, being a mother or solider. One or the other. Having children while serving is nice but nothing more than working the system and/or welfare. You can’t serve and shift your duties to others.
Your a proud parent and grandparent and supportive American parent. I thank you for that. Now pass that on to your daughter so she will do the right thing and come home with the baby and support her fellow veterans.
To the woman with the daughter expecting: congratulations to both of you, and it takes a whole lot of woman and soldier for her to make the decision to stay in. I was one of those soldiers. I applaud her, and you as well for being as supportive as you are. Woman in the military need more mothers like you.
To cPg: I couldn’t disagree with you more. A lot of the women serving in our military are very hardworking soldiers, and sacrifice a lot of their family time to be at work with their units, how dare you say its working the system. Temporarily while the mothers in recovery, okay, of course duties will be shifted, as with any other soldier who’s had an injury, illness, etc. But then it is right back to work for her and she has to be physically, emotionally, and mentally capable to be ready to deploy within six months.
Whatever the decsion a woman in the military chooses should be supported either way, and not looked upon as negative.
My son is Deployed and I don’t get to talk with him at all to speak of and he never calls home and of course I cant call him and he will Not write home either. when i do get to talk with him it’s like if i am lucky maybe for about 5-10 minutes and it is on private chat on FB and it seems as he’s on line then off line and takes forever to hear a response back. so I am really unable to talk with him and that’s making things even harder on me. along problems I am going through with my housing and all i feel out in left field and don’t know what way to turn. I’m worried sick for his safety as well as where i am going to live at this point that I can NOT sleep. any advice?
I so totally understand Karen. I have a son who is serving the last of his 20 years in Afghanistan currently. He has; needless to say, been deployed all over the world. His first tour of Iraq he called me and said Mom I will not be calling you. I have to concentrate on my men and keeping them safe. Sometimes we parents become a distraction. We love our children and we worry ourselves to death. As a matter of fact I got high blood pressure during this deployment. My advice to you would be to get an audio cassette player..try walmart, they are cheap and mail him one and you keep one. Send extra tapes and ask him to please once every couple of weeks to take the time to just say hello and let you know he still exists and is thinking of you. And you in turn do the same. It is hard as a mother. We tend to think of these men as being 15 or 16 and always will. Do not watch the news, I know it is hard. Check to see if there is a parents group in your county. Try the local recruiters office. Sometimes there are groups that send care packages to our overseas deployed and they need help sorting and packaging and with fund raising activities. Look upon the deployment as a challenge of your faith that all is going to be ok. And do pray, pray for them all, in a positive way. You should be proud of his commitment and do tell him how proud you are. I hope this helps.
Best thing to do is accept his position. Being worried will not change the situation. If you constantly worry about things you personally can not change then you will never be happy. Instead of worrieing be proud of what he is doing. He is taking on challenges for his country 99% would not.
Being worried is not a choice, it is something that comes without invitation. However; God gave us Prayer to deal with the worry, my son has been in the army for the past 14 years. The first 3 years were a breeze, compared to the past 11…The past 11 have taken a tole on all of us. My little boy that left my home, is now a grown man, he stands tall and proud. He is Proud to service his Country and he volunteers for any deployment that is offered to him (much to his wife, and my dismay)…but this is what he signed up for…but I Pray and keep on Praying, I have my family and churches Praying also…This grown man who will always be my little boy. Is a Proud Sgt. is the U.S. Army…Thank You Mothers, Dads, Wives, Husbands & Children for allowing us to sleep at night…and Thank you Father God for taking care of our Children!
Hello Karen – I have no children so i don’t understand what you are going through as the mother of a military son deployed overseas. My heart goes out to you on your pain as a military mom. I know what you are going through about losing your housing because last week I thought I was going to lose my housing too. I think you would greatly benefit from building personal relationships with other military moms, preferably in your local area, so you can call them and go for a cup of coffee when you are feeling like you can’t cope.
One of the major things that helped me through my deployment down range not just as a husband but as a son was pictures of happy times. pictures of myself and spouse having fun together and from my parents were pictures when i was a kid. having fun. but for me i enjoyed those because i had been adopted.
THANK YOU SO MUCH, MY SON IS BEING DEPLOYED IN JANUARY AND AS STATED ABOVE VERY VERY EMOTIONAL. BUT ONE THING MY SON KNOWS IS THAT I AM VERY PROUD OF HIM. I SAID THE ARMY MADE YOU ARMY STRONG,AND YOU MADE ME ARMY MOM STRONG. THANK YOU TO ALL SOLDIERS WHO SACRIFICE FOR OUR FREEDOM.
I am retired and encourage every young person I meet to enlist. I have 5 sons and 1 daughter, 4 of my sons enlisted and my youngest took my advice and has been in for 12 years. He has spent all 12 years over seas and we only get to see him and our grand children every year or two. We let him know, via face book and telephone how much we love and miss him and that he is in our prayers constantly. He does isolated deployments about every fourteen months for four to six months at a time. He knows this is his career and job and its not as bad as when he was growing up and I was at times seven months in and seven months out without the communications we have today. God bless all those who serve and have served this great nation. As for the soldier who is pregnant and deciding to re-enlist, go for it because only God knows what tomorrow will bring.
SEMPER FI!
Hi I a 100% service connected veteran. I got injured during the Viet Nam war was in the Air Force and had time in to retire so i have my choice of collecting retirment or compensation which ever is the highest and i am sure you guys know that the military retirment pay is not quite enough to live on so i am on the compensation now. I am 81 years old now and really enjoying life so Thanks guys and girls. Mac. c 0
I am the mom of a veteran and struggled through my son’s active duty and deployment in the National Guard. You are so right Adrienne about that feeling of helplessness.
Writing my story helped me make sense of my deepest fears and greatest hopes. I encouraged other military moms to write resulting in a published anthology, Love You More Than You Know: Mothers’ Stories About Sending Their Sons and Daughters to War. (Gray & Company, Publishers 2009).
Part of the proceeds from the book go to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund and Remind.org
http://semperfifund.org/ http://remind.org/
Share your story about your military hero. http://www.loveyoumorethanyouknow.com
my son graduated from Basic and is supposed to be deployed before the end of this year. I support him 100% and all our military. I couldn’t be more proud of him. I am trying to find a way to get more involved and volunteer in my community, but i’m finding a hard time finding a group for parents of soldiers.
Very good points!
yeah like my family kept mum bout my wife’s suicide attempt. Fun This Article
make sure to have plenty of drugs and alcohol for your soldier
Your advice on positivity is correct…my son is currently deployed and as a former Marine wife I know what to expect. It is imparitive to be positive when communicating with any soldier they have enough to worry about as it is. I’m sending care packages for him and his unit with the help of local law enforcement in my town. Again, letters and goodies from home help to boost their moral while deployed. If I could figure out a way to send his favorite food and ensure it would be edible I promise I would!
For me, reading books written by people who were there made a big difference in me being able to understand that there are things that I can’t and will never understand. Anyone who has never been in combat can’t understand it. But it gave me a base that I could work off of, and understand where some of his behaviors (like wanting to have a gun with him at all times) came from. His first apartment after he got out of the army – he chose it because he had a vantage point from all rooms, and the brick would stop most bullets. Who thinks that way looking for a place to live??? Someone who has been ambushed and shot at in a effort to kill him.
I just found out my daughter is being deployed. I can say that I go through every emotion I can. I have locked myself in my room and don’t want to see or speak to anyone. I am angry, terrified, and my heart is broken into a thousand pieces. I did go to my therapist to talk yesterday and he says it will get better. My friend’s son was killed over there and I don’t know how I am going to be able to say goodbye. I know seeing people will just make it worse because all they will want to do is ask questions and feel sorry for me. I know they mean well but not one of them has sent their children overseas to fight this useless war. Not one of my daughter’s unit has contacted us for support. She is only 18 and not married. I just don’t know how I am going to get over this.
Thank you, I think that is definitely great advice and insight!