Parenting from Afar
If you have a child and work takes you halfway across the world, you are parenting from afar. Let’s explore what can you do before, during and after a deployment to make this whole experience better.
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Special Guest
Tracy Beck has been facilitating workshops for children for over 20 years. These popular workshops for kids ages three to 12 are a great way to keep kids connected to the deployed parent.
Highlights
- 3:41 Every child goes through it differently
- Every family is different. There’s no right way, no wrong way. Every situation is different.
- 4:57 Know how your child will react.
- Do lots of things together before a deployment.
- 10:23 Calendar and a map
- 14:10 Capturing important moments during a deployment.
- Don’t plan too much after reunion.
Quotes
“Some of them are a little bit shy of the military person coming home. Others are just right in there like yay. Again, everybody is different. It’s hard in that the military member, sometimes thinks things are the same.” – Tracy Beck
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Thank you
- This podcast is made possible by funding from True Patriot Love Foundation.
- Thank you to Organized Sound Productions for their help bringing this podcast to life.
Transcript by Otter.ai
Intro
This podcast is made possible by funding from True Patriot Love Foundation.
Tracy
Sometimes when they’re gone up to eight months, seven months, a lot changes, new friends are made, other friends or have either moved away or they’re not in the picture anymore. Some of them are a little bit shy of the military person coming home. Others are just right in there like yay. Again, everybody is different. It’s hard in that the military member, sometimes thinks things are the same. When the military member comes home, it’s it’s hard. It’s hard for everybody to get back into the swing of what has changed and what is the same. It works. You know, everybody plugs along and and it works until the next deployment.
Intro
The military life style is all encompassing. It’s difficult but rewarding. Dynamic, very, very dynamic. Unpredictable. You are in the Canadian Armed Forces or a family member connected to the military. You know the lifestyle can be a challenge. Military lifestyle is always changing. In this podcast, we explore the world of deployment, postings and transitions. This is the military lifestyle. Here’s your host, Jon Chabun.
Jon
If you have a child and work takes you halfway across the world, you are parenting from afar. So what can you do before, during and after to make this whole experience better? Tracy Beck has worked with the Military Family Resource Centre for over 20 years. She teaches deployment workshops for kids age three to 12. Great way to keep kids connected to the deployed parent.
Jon
So when I first started at the MFRC, I remember, it was probably November 2009. And there was a homecoming. There were families down at the jetty at CFB Esquimalt. And there was this one family that caught my attention. There was a young boy probably around four years old. And he was watching the ship come home. And he started bawling, started crying away. And the mom was great. The dad is great guy. And I felt I felt really bad because there’s this kid and he’s just a flood of emotions coming out. I know he was somebody who attends one of your workshops, Tracy, that was like a profound experience for me to witness that and, you know, the reunification. I just know. That parenting from afar can be a challenge and having a child separated from a family member can have a huge impact on them.
Tracy
Yes, yeah, it. The reason I got into doing the workshops was because my two girls did the workshops when Michelle Devereaux did them and made a huge difference. And when I saw the difference in them. I thought, wow, these are really good. So then I, you know, started to volunteer and I was helping out and then it kind of just worked into a job, because every child goes through it differently. Right. So, you know, I had one girl was like, I don’t have a daddy when daddy was gone. And the other girl was so upset and missing him all the time. And then of course, you know, when daddy comes home, it’s like, Whoa, it’s like he was never gone. For the one who didn’t have a daddy and the one that was so missing him was very shy again, when dad came home. Two kids even in the same family, you get two different scenarios. So it is really hard for parents to manage that kind of thing.
Jon
So what are families experiencing when a deployed member is preparing to leave? Obviously, there’s the child, the deployed parent and the at home caregiver.
Tracy
And every family is different. Some people don’t tell their kids until they have to leave. Because that’s what worked. Some people tell them months ahead, and then they prepare all together. And it’s really hard because there’s no right way. There’s no wrong way. And everybody prepares differently.
Jon
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Every child is different. Every situation is different.
Tracy
Know how your child will react. So you kind of go with what you know, realize comes to work, right? A friend of mine never ever went down to the Jetty ever. Daddy would say goodbye, be gone for six months. He’d come home after work on that, or, you know part way through the day or pick them up at school. But they never ever went down to the jetty to say goodbye or to say hello. The kids it was just like another oh, dad’s gone to work but he’s gone for a long time. Some kids that would be terrible. They need to see dad go they you know, so it’s it’s really it’s hard and everybody does it differently.
Jon
What are some things that the deployed parent would be? Is there any common emotions would you say?
Tracy
Well, everybody is kind of on edge and stressed before a deployment, right, like they. The military member is, you know, stressed and needing to get things done and, the parent at home is going crazy because trying to get everything done knowing that she’s going to be alone for, you know, months making sure the cars working and making sure everything is okay. And the kids, the kids are more emotional, some of them are but a lot of times if the child can help, you know, pack something or give dad something to take with them or mom, whoever it is the mom or the dad give something for the military member that really helps and take pictures like that’s one of the huge thing when the kids come to my workshop if they’ve got that. Dad took a picture with you know, Binky sitting on the Camel and dad took a picture when with this and with that and all kinds of things right and they can put us scrapbook together of just their little stuffy or whatever.
Jon
What are some tips you would have for people in the pre deployment phase or activities that they could do?
Tracy
Do lots of things together, do lots of fun things together. Go on a picnic, do the movie nights, spend as much time together as you can because it’s, you’re all split up for months. It comes really fast. So that’s what you know, I would suggest.
Jon
I know my experience having a child is that when something’s wrong I definitely can sense it. Sometimes my child is able to express it, sometimes not. And but yeah, you can you can see it and sleep. You can see it and how they eat. Yeah, crying. I’m sure that’s similar things that families might see.
Tracy
Yeah, and anger. They get mad. Yeah. They throw things or there’s lots of anger when they more so as they get older, I guess, and maybe they can express it better. You know, they get mad that their parent has to go away. In that case, when they get older, there’s so many more things that you can do with a parent who is deploying. The little ones, like I said, give them a bear to take around or get them to remember to send postcards, the kids love to have postcards. And the thing to do is to always mail them to each child. Don’t send one if you have three children, you need to send three, you know, like little things like that. The kids love to receive things. So you know, whenever they do, it’s always a big, happy day when they receive something or what now they see them on the screen all the time. So it’s it is again, it’s evolving again, right? Always changing, deployments are always changing nowadays. So it’s a long time ago since my kids did a deployment.
Jon
Yes, exactly. A lot has definitely changed what our families experiencing while a deployed parent is away. And again, looking at it from the child, the parent who is aay and the parent at home.The parents are way parent or caregiver at home.
Tracy
Right. Yeah, so the military member misses out on a lot when they miss out on birthdays, many, many birthdays. And that’s when again, there’s a lot of emotion because the child is angry that dad or parent is not there. They miss seeing the kids grow up. And being all these years and having you know, my kids now are our adults and hearing from somebody who who missed all that. They feel quite bad that they missed so much of their children’s lives, growing up. Being out of sea all the time.
Jon
And I guess, with children, there might be a little bit of a struggle. So what are some tips and activities that you’d recommend people, when they’re in the process of experiencing a deployment?
Tracy
One of the things I always suggest is, you know, get a calendar and a map. And with the calendar, you can either check off the days, circle a day, that parent is coming home and then just keep, you know, checking off the days one by one, or with a map you can follow along where the parent is going. The kids really liked that, the kids really liked the map and moving the little ship around to show where their parent is, wherever you they might be in the world or even not on a ship, we have, you could, you know, just put them in Iraq or wherever the parent is. Learn a little bit about the places where they’re going, especially if you have older kids that gives the topics of conversation. I know in my, in my workshop, I had told everybody that there’s a big zoo when they were in Africa, a big like a safari. So I said, you know, ask your parents if they’re going on the safari, because there was a whole bunch that were from the ship. And so many of the kids came back and say, yeah, my dad went on that safari and and he saw a lion and he saw giraffe and right and, you know if you can give the children, any kind of tools that you know can help, even things that they can ask parents for conversations or before dad before the military member goes, you could work out a time to say that when you get when they get into a port, you could watch them on, FaceTime them. And so you could, you know, mark that on your calendar so that the children have something to look forward to, at different times. It’s easier to look forward to something for sure. And if you had knowledge of where they were, you know, going, then you would be able to, like I said, plan the safari, like ask them that kind of stuff or because there’s all sorts of little interesting things about all the different countries that they go to.
Jon
Yeah, I guess little research. So if you know they’re going to be in Australia. There’s a wealth of topics that you can mind there. If you’re going to be in Japan, completely different cultural experience, but something that people can draw upon as well.
Tracy
That’s right. And and if they’re when they’re going, if they could bring home some money, like just change from wherever countries are in, and then after they come back. They can sit down with probably maybe eight years old and older and find out exactly how much 25,000 rupees is, when we have children bring in money. They’re always surprised at how different it is then the Canadian dollar. But children do really love money. And they they love to think of what they could purchase, would you be able to purchase a ball? Would you be able to purchase a chocolate bar? Would you be able to purchase a new truck like a toy truck or something? So that’s a fun one to bring back money from all the different stops that they go to.
Jon
Is there anything else you’ve recommended to people or little activities that you would have?
Tracy
Well, there’s the little candy jar When dad is or the parent is gone, every day they can watch the candy jar go down, you get one candy a day. Or you could even just make like little circles or any kind of a little design it all and put something that happens during the day, a special moment or something that you don’t want to forget that like you got an A on your test or you scored a goal or you learned to tie your shoes, things like that, and then just put them up on a wall somewhere and then when the parent comes home, he could, they could also see all the things that you have done that the child has done, or that has happened in the family. Some people have done it as a family and some people have done it for each child. But it interesting to see what the children I think is important.
Jon
So when families are reunited, obviously, children can be going through a bunch of different emotions. For the deployed parents, they’ve got a little bit of adjustment back into the family mix. And that home caregiver, there’s going to be, again, almost like a renegotiating of roles. Like this is how we did things while the parent was away and now we got to figure out the new way forward.
Tracy
Well, yeah, because sometimes especially sometimes when they’re gone up to eight months, seven months, a lot changes. New friends are made. with older children, other friends are, have either moved away or they’re not in the picture anymore. With the young ones, some of them are a little bit shy of the military person coming home. Others are just right in there like yay. Again, everybody is different. It’s hard in that the military member sometimes thinks things are the same. But everybody has changed. And where were you, the home caregiver has been able to, you know, make things work maybe a little bit differently. When the military member comes home, it’s, it’s hard, it’s hard for everybody to get back into the swing of, of what has changed and what is the same. But it works. You know, everybody plugs along and, and it works until the next deployment.
Jon
What are some tips or activities for when people come home? What would you recommend?
Tracy
You shouldn’t plan to do too much because depending on where the military member has come from, they’re still tired. They’re winding down. They don’t want to be busy, they want to just usually relax for a few days before they get back into everyday life. So it’s an adjustment to because you just want to go out and have fun with them again, but they just want to stay home and be at home and not on a ship. So there is an adjustment with that, too.
Jon
Is there anything else you’d mentioned to people when it comes to parenting from afar?
Tracy
Try to stay connected if you can do things like in a port to visit a museum, if the parent is going to a museum, an older child can look on the internet to see what’s at the museum. I would definitely send postcards, children love postcards, and people are forgetting about postcards. People don’t mail letters anymore. And postcards are something that they love and they they bring them in and they show everybody and it’s a it’s a big deal for a kid.
Jon
Oh, that’s it. Thank you very much for coming. Thanks. Thanks for your insights.
Tracy
Well, thank you for having me.
Jon
The Esquimalt MFRC developed these children deployment workbooks. To take orders through the website. Visit EsquimaltMFRC.com. Visit the resources page and the deployment section on the website for more information.
Extro
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Military Lifestyle. To learn more about this episode, and to check out our other resources like the Deployment App, go to EsquimaltMFRC.com. A special thanks to True Patriot Love Foundation for funding season one of this podcast and to Organized Sound Productions for bringing our idea to life. Please share this podcast with your military family or with someone living the lifestyle. Subscribe to the military lifestyle on your favorite podcasts. Your support is greatly appreciated. Thank you for listening.
