Keeping It Safe and Fun: Parent Perspectives on School-Based Mentoring for Military-Connected Youth

The unprecedented lengthy and repeated deployments endured by U.S. service members in the past decade have taken a toll on military families.  Recent studies document the negative effects of deployment related stress (DRS) on students from military families, including negative impacts on academic progress, on the process of learning, and on the social and behavioral context of school life (De Pedro et al., 2011; Engel, Gallagher, & Lyle, 2010; Lyle, 2006; Chandra et al., 2011).  Needed are strategies that identify and support military students before serious declines in academic performance or school behavior (Astor et al., 2013).  Yet, military families are known to be invested in “taking care of their own,” making it difficult to engage them at times. The present study was conducted as part of a larger Institute of Education Sciences (IES)  funded project to develop a model for school-based mentoring for elementary school-aged youth with a parent in the military, National Guard, or Reserve (military-connected youth). We sought to examine how military parents would perceive and receive school-based mentoring, as a measured and non-stigmatizing response to DRS.

Two focus group interviews (90 minutes each) were conducted with a total of 13 (8 female) military parents, 34-50 years of age, in one school district in the Pacific Northwest. Participants were asked to offer their perceptions of the fit between school-based mentoring and the needs of their families, concerns they might have, and best approaches to engaging them and their children in such a program. The audio-recordings of the groups were transcribed and analyzed thematically (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

Parents in both groups were initially skeptical about the need for such a program for their children. However, emerging from the discussion was a strong interest in a safe, fun, and strengths-based approach and most found the idea of having this kind of extra support quite appealing. Also noted, however, was the importance of mentors having some understanding of military culture and how detrimental a well-meaning adult who interferes with how the parent at home is framing the service member’s absence can be, especially with elementary school aged children.  These findings lend insight into the needs and interests of parents’ in military families and how to engage these parents around school-based services for their children.