Houston County Schools Offer Support Group For Children with Deployed Parents

Military deployment is hard on the entire family, but it’s the children who hurt the most when a parent is sent, sometimes unexpectedly, to serve our country.  Children from military families at Matt Arthur Elementary in Kathleen, now have a way to try and make sense of deployment.

5th grader Ashtyn Reas’s dad has been deployed before, and now he’s about to do it all over again.

“I always get upset when I find out he’s leaving,” says Ashtyn. “He was like whispering to a friend while we were at the store, and I was like ‘What?!’ and he was like ‘Nothing.’ But, he’s going to be leaving soon.”

That’s why she’s grateful for programs like the Support Group for Children with Deployed Parents, where children can express how they’re feeling about mom or dad’s deployment, in a supportive environment.