You can manage the stress through good planning and communication:

• Meet together as a family and develop a deployment plan together.  By creating a plan, you will help to decrease some of the uncertainty of deployment.
• Plan how to communicate with your family while you are overseas.  Agree on a set of days/times that you can realistically meet.
• Decide in advance what you’d want to talk about during deployment and what you might not want to talk about until you get back home.
• Build in time to realistically reassure your family that you will do all that you can to keep yourself safe.  Realistic reassurance can go a long way to decrease your family’s worries.
• If you’ve deployed before, review your previous deployment plan with your family to decide what worked and what needs to be changed.  If you’ve not deployed before, talk with your friends or unit supports that have.
• Remember that you don’t have to do this alone.  Members of your community (work, school, military, religious or neighborhood) often want to help. Take advantage of what they are willing to do and have them be a part of your plan!
• Build in specific stress management or stress reducing exercises that you or your family might want to use as part of your plan. Stress management strategies can help you and your family prior to your departure and while you are away.
• Finally, it’s important to understand that sometimes even the best-laid plans won’t be enough.  Some families may need additional information and support including social service assistance and therapy. If so, a good source of help is MilitaryOneSource, a program funded by the Department of Defense. This site is available 24 hours/day, 7 days a week.  There is no charge for these services.

Here are additional topic specific web sites you may find useful:

• Battlemind Training (select "Continue to this website" if prompted by website security)
• Talk Listen Connect-Sesame Street Workshop
• Women Veterans Health Program
• Returning from the War Zone (PDF)

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