The impact of deployment and the adjustments to new roles and responsibilities and painful absences are daunting for service members and their families. The following are tips to help cope with the emotional challenges of deployment:

Tips for Family Members:

• Try to ignore rumors and limit exposure to news programs that emphasize painful war images and frightening content.

• Reach out to others in the same situation. Resources like the Family Readiness Group (FRG) help make this possible by linking deployed soldiers, their families, and other personnel to facilitate the exchange of information and provide a sense of community. To learn more about the virtual FRG web system go to: http://www.armyfrg.org/skins/FRGPat/display.aspx.

• Don’t hide feelings. Recognize that sadness, anger, exhaustion, or numbness are normal and will occur periodically. Talk to family and friends. Find events and activities to look forward to which are fun, involve exercise or other stress-reducing activity.
• To relieve stress, try to carry on with everyday routines, as familiar habits can be very comforting. It’s also beneficial to seek support in your faith community and learn stress management techniques such as yoga, journal keeping, exercising, or meditation.

• Here are some quick tips for communicating with your deployed service member. Try to be creative. Emails and letters are great, but you can also send audio and video recordings or create a personal webpage that displays family news and pictures. Express yourself clearly. Vague messages can lead to misunderstandings. Be honest about how you feel. Don’t pretend to be okay when you’re not. To learn the guidelines for military mail go to: http://hqdainet.army.mil/mpsa/mid.htm.

Tips for Servicemen and Women:

• Agree upon a time each day that you and your family will think of each other.

• Start long distance games that your family can enjoy. Play show-and-tell by sharing something new you learned at work. Have your children share something new they learned at school. Exchange trivia questions with your children and reveal the answers in your next correspondence. Mail loving notes to your spouse or partner with instructions to tuck them under the pillows or hide them in the lunchboxes of your children.

• Try not to feel forgotten if no one is home when you place a phone call. Realize that family members can easily develop a sense of anxiety when leaving the house for fear of missing your call, so clarify expectations regarding the frequency of phone conversations before you leave or by email. Let them know when you might call.

• Some soldiers may fail to get mental health assistance because of the stigma associated with seeking help. However, through support of mental health services and psychological counseling in the daily activities of soldiers, the stigma associated with asking for care is eliminated. Talk with a psychologist, military counselor or fellow soldier to discuss frequently encountered problems during deployment.

Post-Deployment Strategy

Although pre-deployment and deployment strategies are critical, identifying and practicing sound post-deployment communication principles also help family members and servicemen and women adjust. Often these principles are mistakenly overlooked due to the common perception that homecoming is a joyous time. Although this may be the case for some families, homecoming can also present a new set of challenges. Both the returning soldier and family left behind should focus on communication principles to ease the transition.

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