Big Things Ahead, Highlighting the Military Child

The month of the military child always has special place in my heart , but particularly this year because we are all forced, including our children, to go through yet another period of transition and change!

Each transition, they rediscover one another

They become best friends

Changes for this transition, which we hope makes it much smoother.

One thing we have been doing differently this time is talking through attachments, the upcoming attachment void and how having conflicting emotions is ok through this period of ending and transition into a new beginning. Most of this I learned from a podcast called The Best of You, hosted by Dr. Alison Cook. My mom shared it with me and since my head is 1/2 way devoted to setting us up (school enrollments, PCS documents, buys a house) in our future home this was a perfect resource for me.

What it feels like as a parent of a military child.

Honestly, I feel extreme guilt and shame over pulling their roots up and replanting them yet again. This feeling is not one I expected when I decided to serve my country, when we married military-military or when we had kids, and it is something I have devoted my life to mitigating. This is the root of my career choices, it is not easy to do this time and time again! Neither of us knew what we were committing to as far as the emotional toll each move would take not only on us, but our children and our family unit.

What sacrifice are you refering to?

I know many are curious and some are oblivious as to what is the sacrifice military families make. Well, it very much involves consistently making new friends, transitioning to a new schools, living in a new neighborhood: in a new state or even new countries. It’s learning new customs, dealing with different weather extremes, learning new languages and so much more. All in all these experiences, some good, some challenging produce highly resiliant families to include each child building resiliance (if you want more info on that click here) skillsets over and over again.

Building resiliancy muscles..Jk, doing pullups!

Right now, in the thick of it, it can be painful to watch your child feel insecure, anxious and scared while struggling to make friends in each new location. As I mentioned before, I am trying to mentally prepare myself and my children for this next move. It should be easy and someways because it will be back into the United States, but in many ways they’ve never even really attended school in the United States so I will be a different atmosphere and likely a slight culture shock.

Change is constant.

Change isn’t always bad, but it is Change, and Change one of the few constants in life and it’s constantly hard. I don’t ask much here, but if you are the praying type I ask you send one up because I am praying that my kids enjoy this move, thrive and overcome any anxieties, insecurities or challenges we may face.

Conflicting Emotions.

And that is the exact current mood! Excitement, because they’ll be seeing Rocky Mountains out their windows, and we will be in a military community and benefit from the support our community lends, we’ll also have the ability to use Rec Centers, playgrounds, pools, splash pads and more with in our neighborhood, ride bikes or walk to school (which they’re all nervous to switch again), and there’s a lot of sports that they can take part in with a 5 mile radius, which is great for them! But, I don’t think they quite get it yet, for how convenient it will be for everyone!

So where are we landing?

Finally the suspense of where we are headed will be answered. We’re all looking forward to making Colorado Springs our next home! It’s quite the adventure when you end up in places you never imagined you could end up.

How we made it here!

The non-traditional career path kicked in for us once we left Florida in 2017, and I never realized we would go from Germany back to Alabama (where I started my career in 2007) for a quick pitstop to have some twins, and then to Canada, where my kids have spent the majority of their lives. That path has set up a perfect transition to a perfect location in Colorado.

How it’s going so far!

It’s been a whirlwind the last few months, but knowing we have a place to land and being excited about where we’re going is something that we hope for and we really really really excited to keep sharing how our children adapt to the change and for better or worse what the military brings us next.