Quick Tips to Help Prepare Your Children for Your Deployment

With planning, you and your family can create special ways to stay in touch during deployment. Try these ideas:

Give your family a scrapbook and a special box to hold letters, drawings, and other souvenirs you send home. Later you'll be able to tell them the stories behind the objects and photographs.
Hide small gifts or notes throughout your home, and jot down the location of each item. Every few weeks during your deployment, send home a treasure map or a clue to lead your family to one of the gifts or notes.
Mark on a map or globe where you will be located, unless the information is classified. Mark the locations of family in other parts of the world, too
Make tapes of yourself reading your children's favorite storybooks. Ask your spouse to play these for your children before bedtime each evening when you're away.
Have your children help you pack, if there's time. This will help them think and talk about your deployment and ask questions they may be wondering about.
Ask your children for a special keepsake to bring with you on your deployment. And give your children a photograph of you in a special frame to keep near their beds.
Agree on a phrase you will each say before going to sleep. It could be as simple as, "Sweet dreams, goodnight." Think of your children and spouse while you say it, and ask them to think of you when they say it.
Put your name on the prayer list at your place of worship, if this is your custom. This will give your family and the entire community the opportunity to pray for you each weekend.

Your Family Support Center can give you information and support on many issues that affect service members and their families. And Military OneSource, a free 24/7 service from DoD, available to all active-duty, Guard, and Reserve members and their families, provides information and referrals plus face-to-face counseling. Call 1-800-342-9647 or access www.militaryonesource.com.

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