As if there wasn’t enough uncertainty this year, for many renters a move added a whole new level of stress and unknowns.  As an Air Force family, when the military says it’s time to go, it was time to go, pandemic or not.  So last summer, after months of lockdowns and isolation, we left our “now” home.  Our kids said goodbye to friends from a distance, and we tried to find some sort of excitement in our COVID-era move.  

This year has been a strange year to cope with.  But for military kids, beyond school closures and masks, they faced parents’ TDY’s being extended and moves spiraling into limbo.  They arrived at a new bases, greeted with virtual schools and no new friends.  As parents struggled to find the best way to ease their family into a new place, military kids once again proved themselves to be some of the most versatile children in the world.  

For many of our military children, they don’t actually realize how unique they are.  My own kids think it’s funny that they are celebrated at school, because “all our friends are just like us.”  The military life is what they were born into and often surrounded by.  They don’t think of what they do as special, because regardless of its difficulty, it’s all they have ever understood to be “normal”.  This month we celebrate how incredible being another “normal” military kid is.     

Service to country isn’t only our service members’.  Our military children face each TDY, PCS, and period of transition with strength and emotion.  They energize our military community.  They are a constant reminder that military service is for something greater than us.  It’s for the future of our country that we are leaving to them.  These incredible children step up in support of the military mission each and everyday that they wave to the gate guards, stop for the national anthem, or wait for a pair of boots to return home.  

April gives us a special opportunity to make sure our military children know they are anything but normal.  They are unbelievably special and appreciated.  Whether your a parent, teacher, or neighbor to a military child, take time to embrace just how unique their military life is. 

Moves are hard on our children.  This year our family took time to reflect on the places we have had the chance to live.  We discussed how friends and family come and visit us from all over the world, just to see the amazing places we get to call home.

We used the RentalDiaries template to talk and create images that reflect what the kids remember about each rental (you can find it HERE.)  As adults, the move is significant, but you may be surprised to see the memories your children carry from the places you have been.  

My kids enthusiatically discussed the “awesome bushes” in our Maxwell yard that they used as their “headquarters”.  They giggled about the house at RAF Honington where they could see the neighbors TV from their bedroom.  My son remembered the house in Florida with the flowers he used to always pick for me.  And honorable mention was given to the home at Los Angeles AB that had “the really great hill.”  

You likely won’t hear them dwell on the heartbreak of moving but instead all of the great things and places they have experienced.  As a military family we spend so much time preparing for what’s to come, it was a great celebration of their unique life to talk about where they have been.

Your military child has great big family that they have built at each base they have lived.  Creating a family tree and reconnecting with some of those family members was a favorite for my kids last year.  Since we had another move this year, my kids were so excited to get to add a branch to ours.  You can either keep your family tree growing from base to base or create a new one this year.    

Sesame Street is a huge advocate of the military community.  Your child can decorate badges that embrace their military adevnture and wear them with pride here.

The support of the family enables military members to focus on the mission. That is no small burden to ask of a child to carry, yet they step up to the plate through deployments, moves, exercises, uncertainty, and constant change.  To military children everywhere, THANK YOU!