Washington - Not only are men and women in the military or their significant others affected by being deployed overseas, their children are as well. A study on military families shows children of deployed service-people are almost three times as likely to be involved in acts of violence such as joining gangs, carrying weapons, or getting in fights. The numbers include boys as well as girls.
Sarah Reed, who led the research, said "This study raises serious concerns about an under-recognized consequence of war."
The first-of-its-kind research is based on a 2008 survey involving approximately 10,000 students in the 8th, 10th, and 12th grade. Five-hundred and fifty of them stated they had parent who was deployed in the past six years.
While the results are high the rate of violence between girls and boys of deployed parents shows an even wider gap. The boys were twice as likely to be violent than girls. In other words sons of deployed service members are six times as likely to be violent as civilian girls.
This seems to be a wake-up call to mental health professionals. Dr. Gregory Gorman, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md, said "Maybe if we make assumptions about children, we may overlook other ways they may be suffering."
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