2-071 - Next steps: Understanding HOW military deployment influences child and family adaptation

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The impact of deployment and subsequent consequences on child and family functioning are of significant concern given both our fifteen years of involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and the number of deployed Service Members with families and children. Allies in the United Kingdom have deployed significant numbers of Service Members as well raising similar concerns and research questions. While it is clear from a burgeoning research base that deployment influences child adjustment, research in this symposium attempts to extend this work by delineating the mechanisms of these effects. Paper 1 expands extant literature by comparing the role of maternal psychological distress and parenting stress for military vs. two and single parent civilian families in predicting child psychopathology. Paper 2 examines the contributions of Service Members’ PTSD to child difficulties, examining particular symptom clusters and the differential impact on boys vs. girls. Paper 3 highlights the importance of examining other family sub-systems by studying sibling relationships and the ways in which changes in these relationships may contribute to child adjustment above and beyond parenting. The discussant for these papers will be a retired Army Colonel who directed the Military Operations Medical Research Programs that manages Department of Defense funded research, currently directs the NATO research group on veterans’ transitions and is the editor of Military Behavioral Health, the key journal regarding biopsychosocial health and adjustment of service members, veterans, and military families.

Sub Unit

• Family Context & Processes

Chair

• Julie Wargo Aikins, Wayne State University

Discussant

• Carol A Castro, University of Southern California

Individual Presentations

• Differences in the prediction of child psychopathology from military and civilian mothers’ emotional and parenting distress - Presenting Author: Julie Wargo Aikins, Wayne State University; Deane Aikins, Wayne State University

• The role of paternal PTSD on emotional and behavioral development of children: A multi-informant survey among UK military families - Presenting Author: Nicola T Fear, King's College London; Ruth Reed, Oxford University; Amy Iversen, King's College London; Sarah Rowe, king's College London; Paul Ramchandani, Imperial College London; Simon Wessely, King's College London

• Sibling Relationships Across the Deployment Cycle: Risk or Protective Relationships? - Presenting Author: Shawn Whiteman Whiteman, Utah State University; Meghan Loeser, Purdue University; Dave Topp, Purdue University; Shelley Margaret MacDermid Wadsworth, Purdue University