A Theory of Risk and Resilience Factors in Military Families

Abstract

This article discusses risk and resilience factors that may affect military families, with a focus on frequent relocation, deployment, exposure to combat and PTSD, and postdeployment reunion as possible risk factors influencing child psychosocial and academic outcome. Research findings are presented as supporting a theoretical pathway that suggests that the effects of military life on child outcome may follow an indirect pathway involving parental stress and psychopathology, rather than military life directly affecting children of military parents. The proposed pathway also serves to highlight the need for further research on understudied resilience factors and provides suggestions for interventions that may benefit military families.