Counseling Students in Military Families

This chapter reviews strategies for working with students who are from military families. During peacetime, military children are nearly identical to civilian children in terms of well-being and academic achievement. When families face deployment, however, social, emotional, academic, and behavioral problems can occur. The chapter reviews risks and stressors faced by students and parents with military involvement; these include financial stress, familial changes related to stages of deployment, and reactions to the injury or loss of a family member. Counseling strategies to support students through relocation, deployment, loss, or injury to a parent are presented and include building coping skills, grief counseling, and group counseling. The chapter also covers how counselors can help schools to establish school-wide supports for their students from military families.