Military Kids Connect is an online community for children ages 6-17 years old, providing access to age-appropriate resources to help with the unique psychological challenges of military life.
There are 1.7 million children of military parents. Every few years, most of them will pack up their belongings, say goodbye to friends, and move, sometimes halfway across the world. Concern about a deployed parent and worry a parent will return injured can test the mental health of any child. The Military Health System offers resources to help those children cope.
Military Kids Connect is an online community for children ages 6-17 years old, providing access to age-appropriate resources to help with the unique psychological challenges of military life.
“Military kids are resilient, smart, tough, and very resourceful,” said Kelly Blasko, a psychologist and the program lead for the mobile web program at the National Center for Telehealth & Technology, headquartered at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, Washington. It’s part of the Defense Health Agency’s Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury. “The Military Kids Connect program gives them even more tools to enhance those incredible characteristics.”
Along with the website, the program uses Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to provide those children with stress-management tools, teach them about their parents’ deployments, and even offer videos of other children sharing personal stories. Children are also able to chat with others in safe, moderated online forums.
“These kids can see role models of others just like themselves and how they’ve coped with the many different stressors,” said Blasko. “Most importantly, it’s geared for military children.”
One of the tools offered is the Stress Detective, which helps children recognize stress in their own bodies. To cope with those stressors, the site offers several activities for older children to explore on their own, as well as areas where younger children and parents work together, including arts and crafts, recipes from different countries and cultures, and sporting activities.
In addition to resources for children, Military Kids Connect provides parents and caregivers with tools to talk with children about tough topics like physical injuries parents might have suffered, and grief and loss, as well as strategies to deal with separations due to a parent’s deployment. Some of the tips for parents include maintaining routines, talking with their children, and teaching them appropriate ways to express emotions. There is even advice on how to reconnect after a separation.
Teachers can find information on how to help students of military parents, including a basic course on the military culture of military life and advice from other teachers. There are also lesson plans from elementary to high school aged students.
Blasko said their evaluations of Military Kids Connect show some promising results. After launching in 2012, the site had 18,000 visits in just the first week. It still has about 8,000 visits each month, giving children, parents, and teachers more resources in addition to the psychological help offered by the Military Health System.
“I would never be able to see that many patients in that amount of time,” said Blasko, adding that anecdotal evidence shows those visits are positive interactions valued by users of the site. “The comprehension of what the stressors are and the appropriate tools to manage them improved. Educators and school counselors say it’s an incredibly valuable resource to them.”
Blasko emphasized that the site can be accessed from any computer, not just those requiring military identification cards.
“This is intended to create a sense of community, not just in the children of military parents, but for everyone who serves these children to see what great people they are,” said Blasko.
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