10 Tips to Help Kids Cope With Military Separation

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Deployments, TDYs, and field training exercises are a reality of military life. There’s just no avoiding them. Your family will be separated, usually multiple times a year. Sometimes those separations are short (a few days or weeks at a time), and sometimes they’re long (anywhere from six to twelve months). Young kids can really struggle to wrap their head around these separations. Why are they necessary? How long will they last? What will their mom/dad be doing while they’re gone? These are complex questions for any kid to figure out, but when your child isn’t even school age yet, trying to help them navigate their feelings and concerns about time away from mom/dad can be a real challenge. Here are a few of the methods I’ve used to help my little ones stay connected with Dad during separation and cope with the anxiety of him being gone.

1. Sing about it – I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably bring it up again: my kids learn really well through songs and music. Songs can make tough concepts easier to digest, and they help simple concepts to stick in your child’s mind. Our favorite song for dealing with separation comes from Daniel Tiger: Grownups Come Back. This song is used to ease separation anxiety with a babysitter or at school, but it works well for deployments and TDY, too! When your kids are missing their mom/dad, being able to sing “Grownups Come Back” to themselves is an empowering way for them to self-regulate. Our church also teaches lots of songs about families that help remind kids that even when they’re apart from each other, they still belong to a forever family.
2. Read books – I’ve found that children’s books often can handle tough topics in much more articulate ways than I can. My kids love the book Over There by Dorinda Silver Williams (it comes in a mommy version and a daddy version), which we actually got from our local ACS (Army Community Service) for free before my husband left on a three-month-long TDY. Check with the ACS at your Post to see if they hand out similar books for families going through military separations. If you’re looking to purchase a couple books, check out Superheroes’ Kids: When Dad is Deployed (Heather Carson), I’ll Lend You My Daddy (Becky King), or When You Are Away (Dominique James).
3. Have Mom/Dad record themselves reading some of your kid’s favorite books – Speaking of books, having your spouse record themselves (audio or visual recordings both work great) reading some of your kids favorite books is a fantastic way to help kids feel connected to their missing parent. Make story time with mom/dad a part of your nightly ritual. Hearing their parent’s voice regularly can help sooth their separation anxiety, and it’s fun for them to get to hold the book and read along while they listen.
4. Video calls – It’s also important for your child to see mom/dad’s face, and thanks to modern technology you can do that through video calls. I don’t recommend doing this every day, or maybe even every week. Kids tend to get wound up by video calls, and can crash emotionally afterwards, so it’s good to keep this as a treat rather than a frequent occurrence. Also, it’s rare that the deployed parent’s schedule will mesh with the schedule at home. Making time to chat face to face on a semi-regular basis is good for everyone, though, and can help you feel closer to one another.
5. Record video messages – Another way to help your child see their parent’s face regularly is to send recorded video messages. These are especially great on birthdays, holidays, and special occasions. When my husband is gone on birthdays he always sends a video of himself singing happy birthday to the birthday boy/girl, and they absolutely love getting those videos! They’ll ask to watch them on repeat. When your child is missing their mom/dad, you can pull out your phone and watch old video messages for a little while. This always soothes my kids.
6. Have a stuffed animal companion – When my dad left on his first year-long deployment, he took a Beanie Baby alligator named Tim with him. Tim went everywhere with my dad during that year, and my dad would photograph Tim in lots of different locations, with different people, and getting into different forms of mischief. Tim met generals, visited old ruins, claimed my dad’s bunk as his own, tried to wear my dad’s helmet, flew on helicopters, and had all kinds of silly and exciting adventures. Every week, my dad would compile a newsletter with all of Tim’s pictures and captions that were “written by” Tim. It was such a fun and unique way to help my youngest brother understand what my dad was doing and feel connected to him. Today, when my husband leaves home, he takes Cody the Cow (a little stuffed cow from Chick-fil-A) with him. The kids love getting pictures of Cody! I can’t recommend this idea enough for military families with young kids.
7. Get a mommy/daddy bear or doll – There are lots of companies that make bears or dolls in military uniform. Some even make them customizable so they look like your servicemember. Having something physical your kids can hug and hold while missing mom/dad is really helpful. We chose to get our “daddy bear” from Build-A-Bear because we wanted something soft and cuddly and because Build-A-Bear lets you record messages and put them inside the bear. Whenever you squeeze Daddy Bear’s paw, he repeats a special message from my husband to my kids. If my kids are missing their dad, I’ll ask if they want to go hug Daddy Bear, and it always helps.
8. Send snail mail – Kids love getting things in the mail, and they love sending mail, too! My daughter enjoys drawing pictures and writing notes for her dad and then taking them to the post office to mail them. She can basically do the entire process (minus writing the addresses and driving herself to the post office) all by herself. And getting a letter in the mail just for them makes your kids feel so special. Be sure to send your servicemember off with stamps, envelopes, and letter paper!
9. Get a Lovebox – During our most recent separation, my husband sent the kids and I a Lovebox. I’d never heard of them before, but my kids were obsessed from the moment it arrived. The Lovebox is a little wooden box with a screen inside. You give people the code to your Lovebox, and then they can send messages to you through the Lovebox app. When you get a message, the heart on the front of the Lovebox will spin to let you know there’s a message inside. Then you just open the lid and read the message on the screen. You can send pictures and little cartoons as well as text. My kids get so excited when they see the heart spinning on the Lovebox! It’s their favorite way to stay connected with Daddy.
10. Use a countdown calendar or paper chain – Time is an elusive concept for small children. A visual representation of how long their mom or dad will be gone makes understanding the separation so much easier for them. There are a couple different ways to do that. We like to make a paper chain and then rip off a link every night before bed. But you can also have a special calendar or chart, and every night you cross off one more day. Making the calendar, chart, or chain together is also lots of fun for kids, and putting them in charge of counting down the days helps them feel empowered over their situation.

Separation is hard for everyone. It’s especially hard when you don’t understand what’s going on, so it’s really important to try and help kids grasp the concept of deployment/TDY as much as possible. Hopefully some of these tips can make your next military separation feel a little less daunting. If you have some tried and true methods of handling deployments and TDY, share them in the comments! We’d all love to hear them.