April is the "Month of the Military Child," a national initiative to support and honor America's service members and their families. The celebration is being recognized with events around the country, and is a key national initiative of First Lady Michelle Obama.
RAND has deep expertise in the field. For example, RAND research has found that:
- Army children whose parents have deployed 19 months or more since 2001 score lower on standardized tests than other Army children whose parents have deployed for shorter periods of time.
- A greater percentage of children from a sample of military families suffered from emotional difficulty and anxiety symptoms compared to other children their age.
"While children and spouses are continuing to handle challenges well overall, it is how children and spouses handle the change in household and family relationships that affects how they cope during periods of deployment," says Anita Chandra, a behavioral scientist at RAND.
