Children of military and veteran families experience unique challenges related to military life and culture. These include deployment-related stresses such as parental separation, family reunification, and reintegration; disruption of relationships with friends and neighbors due to frequent moves; and adaptation to new schools and new community resources. Added to this, some children face the trauma of a parent returning home from combat with injuries or illness; others must face their parent's death. Research indicates that although most military children are healthy and resilient and have positive outcomes, certain deployment stresses put some groups at risk: young children; children with preexisting health and mental health problems; children whose parents serve in the National Guard, are reserve personnel, or have had multiple deployments; children who do not live close to military communities; children who live in places with limited resources; children in single-parent families with that parent deployed; and children in dual-military parent families with one or both parents deployed.

Some 1.4 million U.S. children have a parent currently in the military. Put another way, nearly half the nation's soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines have children under 18. About a quarter of American's 20 million Veterans have at least one minor child living with them. In a recent report to Congress, the Department of Defense stated that nearly 1 million children have had at least one parent deploy to either Afghanistan or Iraq.

A veteran family is generally defined as a family with a parent, child, or sibling who served as an active duty service member or in the National Guard or Reserves. Although the number of women in the military is gradually increasing, most service members are men, and in most families the service member is the father (or son or brother). Beyond this parameter, today’s veteran families come in many forms. 

Millions of service members have made untold sacrifices for the United States during deployments to combat zones. Troops who served or are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, already numbering more than 2.7 million, are the most recent group to be making the transition from military to civilian life. The majority of them, across all ranks of service, are spouses with children. As the service member separates from the military and adjusts to veteran status, so does the military family.

What happens to families after separation from the military? Joy and optimism at the return of a loved one may compete with painful realities and adjustments. Many families have built a very strong connection to their military community and identity, and have benefited from the close-knit structure and support systems surrounding their lives.

The challenges of transition are intensified if the service member has changed as a result of physical injury, traumatic loss, PTSD, depression and anxiety, or traumatic brain injury – costs of war borne also by spouses, children, and parents. All told, the transition from military to civilian status may be one of the most precarious stages in the life of the family. Yet, it is likely to be met with the extraordinary strength and resilience that have long been associated with military families. The goal of this fact sheet is to raise the awareness of service providers about the needs of this unique community of families, and to offer guidance in working with them as they establish a new foundation.

The Veterans Incarceration/Suicide Index (VISI). While veteran populations vary from census to census, most agree that there are approximately 22 million military veterans in the U.S. population. If you add these figures on veterans to the active personnel numbers mentioned above, 7.3% of all living Americans have served in the military at some point in their lives.