Military Parent Resources | Military Parenting Programs
Wouldn’t it be great if children came with instructions? As a military parent, you have the next best thing to parenting instructions – a wealth of parenting resources, benefits and programs. Military OneSource is by your side through the journey of parenthood – through the early years and tricky teen years. Whether it’s finding quality child care, learning about adoption, helping your kids excel in school or connecting to resources, Military OneSource is here for you.
Latest Content
Navigating Child Care Changes During COVID-19
If you have questions about child care during the COVID-19 pandemic, Military OneSource is available 24/7 to help you find answers.
Deployment Resources for Families
While military families know how to stand strong, the stresses of deployment can bring extra challenges. At Military OneSource, we're here to help — by connecting you to a wide array of programs and services designed for military families.
Military Child Care Programs
Choosing child care may be one of the most important decisions — and one of the first — you’ll make as a parent.
Children and Technology: 5 Tips for MilParents
Parenting today means staying in the know and up to date on technology with all of its gadgets and apps – and being able to guide its use in your home.
New Military Parents: Eight Ways to Keep Your Child Safe, Happy and Healthy
Welcome to parenthood. Parenting can be the most rewarding and challenging job you’ll likely have. As a warrior, you’re trained to depend on a team and leave no service member behind.
The Military Parenting Community: Enhancing Resilience One Family at a Time
Raising a child can be the most exhilarating of adventures. It can also be exhausting, overwhelming or relentless — sometimes all at the same time.
15 Tips for Helping Your Teenager Deal With Deployment
Patience, communication and extra care can go a long way in comforting a teenager who is dealing with deployment. Knowing how to respond as a parent to the feelings associated with deployment will ensure a successful transition for everyone.
MilParent Power is Help for Parents
MilParent Power offers helpful information and practical tools to help busy military parents build family togetherness, readiness and resilience.
Ways to Secure More Parenting Wins
MilParent Power offers tools, tips and tactics to help keep children and families healthy, safe and strong.
Helping Your Child Find a Mentor
Sometimes other adults have the special gift of helping our children see and use their strengths and talents. This is mentorship.
The New Parent Support Program
The New Parent Support Program helps military parents, including expectant parents, transition successfully into parenthood and provides a nurturing environment for their children.
How to Communicate With Children From Birth to 5 Years
The way your child communicates will change a lot between birth and the age of five, and children have a language of their own. Knowing what to expect can help you understand and respond to your child in meaningful ways.
Becoming a New Father While You’re Deployed
Don’t let the stress of deployment spoil the bliss you feel as an expectant father. Even if you won’t be there for the delivery, you can still experience the joys of new fatherhood.
12 Can’t-Miss Parenting Resources for Military Parents
From new parent support assistance to newsletters packed with information, military parents have access to numerous resources to make your job of raising kids a little easier and a lot more fun.
Sesame Street for Military Families: Helping Kids Through Life’s Milestones
For many years, colorful Sesame Street characters like Elmo and Big Bird have helped children learn while having fun. The Department of Defense has drawn on these familiar friends to help children ages 2-6 through the milestones of relocations, deployments, transitions and more.
Plan Your Operation Back-to-School for Your Military Child
Transition smoothly from summer to school by making a great game plan for the school year with your child. By doing so, you can help your child establish a sense of ownership in the plan to prepare them for – and perhaps even get excited about – going back to school.
Healthy Sexual Behaviors in Children
The birds and the bees. It can be a tough conversation for any parent to have with their children. Rather than avoiding it, prepare early by understanding the childhood stages of healthy sexual growth. Understanding their development stages can better prepare you for “the conversation” and any questions they may ask you about gender, sexuality and relationships along the way.
MilParent Power Tips
Parenting is a perfect example of family readiness and resilience – it’s an “always-on” job. Like a military mission, responsible parenting requires attention, smarts, skills and support. Here are 19 tips to help you step up your parenting and improve your childrearing skills. Everyone wins with responsible parenting.
Parenting and Teen Stress
Teens juggle many things: fitting in at school, managing classwork and clubs, the daily tidal wave of hormones, and the ups and downs of high school romances.
Protect Your Children from Health Risks by Building Family Resilience
As a parent, being aware of factors that can impact your child’s well-being – even into adulthood – is mission-critical. Research shows that when a child has a secure bond or attachment with their parent or caregiver, they can better manage stress.
MilParent Power: Keeping Your Children Safe
In many ways parenting is a lot like a military job: it’s a 24-hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year commitment.
Understanding Your Child’s Development: An Overview for Military Parents
Children change quickly. Suddenly your sleeping infant is an independent 3-year-old. Before you know it, your kid is off to high school.
Top Military OneSource Parenting Resources
You have a busy life working, caring for the kids, cleaning the house, running carpool and making dinner. Military OneSource understands that and does your homework for you. We highlight the latest resources, information and advice on parenting so that you don’t have to spend hours at the computer on your downtime looking up services.
Making the Move Easier for Military Kids
Moving with kids can be a little like assembling a jigsaw puzzle. A little perspective and patience is needed for you to fit all the pieces together.
How Military Parents Can Create Safe Sleeping Environments for Infants
One of the easiest ways for military parents to keep your children safe – and avoid the possibility of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS – is to arrange for a safe sleep place before your infant comes home from the hospital.
How to Teach Your Military Child About Healthy Boundaries
The best way for military families to show children healthy boundaries is to model it yourself – both with them and with other adults. Here’s a list of some common ways you can help your children learn to build this resilient skill in everyday family life.
Tools for Parenting After a Suicide
You do not have to handle the grief of a suicide all by yourself. Help is available to you.
Ways to Support Your Kids in Grade School
As the guardian of your family, you want to both protect your children and help them be their best. Helping them to learn and grow is a big way to achieve both goals.
How to Support Healthy Sexual Relationships for Your Military Teenager
Military parents or guardians like you can maximize the chances of your teenager having happy and healthy relationships in high school and beyond by learning about the emotional and health problems that can arise from common unhealthy sexual behaviors, as well as what healthy teenage relationship behaviors are.
Helping Your Children Change Schools
Frequent moving to new duty stations is fact of military life. Be prepared to help your school-age children with changing schools—it can go a long way to helping them adjust in healthy ways to some of the routines of military life.
Supporting Your Military Children Through the Deployment Cycle
As parents, we want to be good role models for our children. When word of a deployment comes, you’ll get a chance to show your kids what it takes to be a good guardian of your family.
6 Tips to Harness Your MilParent Power
As a service member, spouse or survivor you know the importance of being a good guardian — of country, community and family. Responsibility is nothing new.
Bullying: How to Identify and Address Peer Aggression
Bullying, or peer aggression, is more common than you think. It consists of any behavior – verbal or physical – directed at peers and intended to cause harm.
Tips for Disciplining Your Child
Misbehavior is a natural part of growing up. However, dealing with it as a parent requires lots of deep breathing, patience and strategies for discipline.
Potential Signs of Postpartum Depression
While the "baby blues" are common for many women after giving birth, some women face a more prolonged and serious period of depression. If your feelings of sadness or anxiety do not go away, you may be suffering from postpartum depression.
Child Counseling Helps Kids Develop Healthy Habits
As a parent of a military youth, you can help your children learn how to develop healthy ways to deal with stress and life’s curveballs.
Getting the Most from Military Kids Connect
Military kids get to develop skill sets other kids never learn. As a parent, that’s your job — helping your kids cope in healthy ways to changing circumstances.
5 Adoption Options
Military life is no longer a barrier to adoption as it once was. However, the adoption process can be a complicated journey and goes more smoothly with a little guidance and information.
7 Tips for Teaching Teens Money Management
It’s never too early to start teaching your kids about money. Encourage them to collect their allowance in a piggy bank whenever they start earning one.
How to Create and Maintain Routines
Most children thrive with routine. Little people crave a sense of control, especially with regard to sleeping and eating Routines are especially important for children who have difficulty with transitions.
Talking to Your Teen About Substance Abuse
Substance abuse happens everywhere, including on and off military installations.
How to Talk to a Child About a Parent’s Severe Injury
Telling your child about a parent's severe injury is a delicate issue that often requires some preparation and guidance.
