Fortunately in my life I have not had many struggles. I have witnessed friends and family struggle with many issues. War is an issue that seems to affect so many people today. I had friends that during Desert Storm and the War in Iraq, the husband was deployed. What I witnessed was a wife home trying to raise 2 teenage boys, work full time, pay the bills, and worry about her husband . She was spread too thin and the result was two teenage boys that rebelled. Her life was turned upside down and although the military offers support and help the best support and help that she could have had was her husbands. A family that had been whole was turned upside down. I remember the police being called to her house many times, the oldest boy running away, stealing from her and even becoming violent. Her two young boys needed their father and they needed a mother who was not so stressed. The youngest son seemed to do better and adjust. He did fine with his life but did struggle in his late teens and 20's. The older boy had children while in his teens, was on drugs, drank and eventually moved out. He is a grown man now and a father of 5, not married, can not hold a job and seems to have every excuse as to why. Although these children were not on the front line, there lives were changed due to war.
The Iraq war affected children in Iraq so much more. I read an article that spoke of children playing in the streets pretending to kill people. This is what they were exposed to so this is how they played. Children stopped going to school and many were orphans. The "Association of Iraqi Psychologists urged the international community to help establish child psychology units and mental health programs"( Guardian News, 2007). There is a lack of doctors due to them fleeing the country or being killed. Children have a fear " of kidnapping and explosions"(Guardian News, 2007) Parents reported that the "distress signals sent out by young people in their care from nightmares and bed wetting to with drawl, muteness, panic attacks and violence towards other children sometimes even to their parents"(Guardian News, 2007). Parents of chidren in Iraq have stressors in their life that most of us can only try to imagine. War is devasting to everyone involved, whether indirectly or directly.
Guardian News-Media. (2007, February 7). 2012. Children of War: The generation traumatised by violence in Iraq. Retrieved March 23, 2012, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/06/iraq.topstories3/print
Thanks for sharing this, Lisa. War can be a stressful time to both those involved, and their families back home. It's something definitely worth avoiding at all costs.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find ironic is how many people join just to get away from stressors at home. These situations just seem like a lose-lse situation
Lisa, your post was excellent and is an example of how much families suffer when a parent(s) are deployed. It is difficult to raise children in the best of circumstances, but add to that a parent being away at war with the other left to fill the void, maintain a home, and act like it is business as usual and the result is many families hurting and needing support that often fall short. I would love to see the statistics as to how many families are like your friends where the children rebel and become angry and violent as a result of their parents being in the service and deployed.
ReplyDeleteHello Lisa
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the war affected children so much. War produces children's violence behavior. War also causes children's healthy problem. A study of a group refugee children from Middle East tells that parents most likely pass the stress to their children and caused the children sleep disturbance following traumatic experiences connected with war".
Reference
E MONTGOMERY, Traumatic experience and sleep disturbance in refugee children from the Middle East, Retrieved from http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/11/1/18.full.pdf