As you unpack your boxes and discover your new environment, you may be wondering how you can best support your children through this transition.
Being a military child can be really, really… really tough: being uprooted every few years and perpetually adapting to new environments, being repeatedly separated and reunited with a parent or parents (and possibly worrying about their safety), are just a few of the stressors that military children know all too well.
But what if these stressors were, sometimes, blessings in disguise? Some misfortunes can be "marvellous", to use Boris Cyrulnik’s (2000) (1) paradoxical oxymoron: certain extreme conditions offer challenges, from which the individual can manage to draw strength and new skills.
The concept of psychological resilience refers to an individual’s ability to ‘’bounce back’’ and recover after having undergone a strong external pressure, shock or trauma; it is a process that involves a loss of balance, a transformation, then a readjustment and growth. It is not only a set of personal characteristics, but a continuous feedback loop between the individual and their social environment , where new tools are discovered to help deal with imbalance. The presence of a solid network of social support, a sense of belonging within a community and having strong affective ties with at least one other significant person are all social factors that act as a buffer to psychological distress.
What are some things you can do to promote the development of resilience in your child?
Spend time together as a family. Network with other military families and encourage contact with the local community.
Encourage activities where your child can make friends, and facilitate contact with friends and family members overseas.
Facilitate your child’s participation in extracurricular activities that build your child’s confidence and self-esteem, and that help develop a sense of mastery. Focus on fun, leisurely, sports and social activities that match their particular strengths and interests.
Cyrulnik considers "narrativity" as central to the process of resilience: encourage your child to express their personal narrative and life story through story-telling, drawing and play. Help them make sense, and ascribe meaning to their experience.
Encourage your child to grow roots wherever they are, even though the separation will be tough. Accompany them emotionally through the transitions by helping them identify and express their emotional experience. Encourage their goal-setting and problem-solving skills, foster hope and optimism.
Contact your local MFS(E) to inquire about programs and services that can help. You’re not in this alone!
For further reading:
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[1] ‘ Boris Cyrulnik (birth 26 July 1937 in Bordeaux ) is a French doctor, ethologist, neurologist, and psychiatrist.
As a Jewish child during World War II, he was entrusted to a foster family for his own protection. In 1943 he was taken with adults in a Nazi-led capture in Bordeaux. He avoided detention by hiding for a while in the restrooms and later being hidden from Nazi searches as a farm boy under the name Jean Laborde until the end of the war. Both of his parents were arrested and murdered during World War II. His own survival motivated his career in psychiatry. [1] He studied medicine at the University of Paris. He wrote several books of popular science on psychology. He is known in France for developing and explaining to the public the concept of Psychological resilience ’’ Source: Wikipedia.