4) Your kids will have moments where you wonder if they were switched at birth.
Certainly, your perfectly behaved, rational child can’t be having that meltdown, right?
Weren’t they completely potty-trained before Dad left? Then why are you washing sheets again every day?
And someone had to have abducted your teenager and replaced him with that moody smart-talker who suddenly lives down the hall.
Deployments affect kids too, but often times in different ways and at different times than they affect us.
By mid-deployment, you may have hit your stride, having everything together. That might be the time when your kids just start showing signs of deployment stress.
Keep the lines of communication open (yes, even with the teenager), encourage them to engage in activities as much as possible and try to have a little more patience without allowing bad behaviors to go unpunished.
A piece of cake, right?!
