Helping 5 Year Old Adjust - Military

My daughter was 5 when I decided to join the Air Force. It was very tough on her, being that I had mostly been a stay at home mom since birth. While in basic training I just wrote letters to her every chance I got. Once in tech school I called every night...no matter what and we would sing "You are my Sunshine" to eachother before bed even with the two hour time difference. While being away I also bought her cute lttle nick nacks and sent them to her on a weekly basis. She would be so excited to get the gifts that it really helped take her mind off the hard times. I still wrote letters for fun and we also started a count down of when we'd be together again in our new home and a new city.
All in all, I was gone for 6 months with the occasional visit. It was tough, but managble. Good luck to you and your family.

We have Daddy Dolls from Hugahero.com. They have a voice recorder in it that my husband recorded messages on before he left.
We sent care packages. My kids made all sorts of pictures. Not only did my husband deploy three times but big brother left for Japan during Daddy's first Iraq deployment.
I took them out to Golden Corral a lot. IN Jacksonville NC kids eat for $1.99. I also used that as collateral for good behavior.
My husband called every chance he could, which was not every day.
My youngest went to the counselor at school and was involved in the deployment groups, we lived right outside of base.
I let him sleep with me for the first 13 monther, by the 3rd deployment he was sleeping in his own bed. My son was 6.
Keep discipline consistent.
Make it fun. In our house Daddy doesn't eat chicken so while he is deployed we eat a lot of chicken. We also ate pancakes, waffles and cake for dinner.
Do not dwell on Daddy being gone. The more you are sad the worse they will feel. This is his job he will be home soon. You have to make the best of it for the childrens' sake.
Visit Grandma, visit the zoo, go to the beach if you dare.
Alot of times I had to ignore the grumpy, moody stuff and just go ahead and make a memory. My worst offender was my then 12 year old.
Make a paperchain for when he will come home, this doesn't work for 13 monthers until the end, like the last 100 D..
Get newsprint and have the kids lay down on them, then trace the bodies. Have the kids color them and send them to Daddy.

tell him dad wants you to pack a package together.... you go to the store.. buy cookies, maybe a candy bar and a bag of chips.. then package it.. have each child make a picture to send to dad... and then all go to the post office to mail it... maybe take a picture of the kids especially your son with a digital camera.. making funny faces... if you don't have a camera .. ask to borrow a neighbors... get the pictures made at the market.. and send that in the box too... tell the kids you can do this every two weeks.. show them on a calander... like mark off each day with an x..... maybe each kid can do the x.. like your son makes the x on monday.. then when its tues your other child does the x... until it's time to send another small box.... it could be very cheap stuff.. but something... see how it goes... good luck

My kids now grown were Navy children, and I just got them involved in writing letters, coloring pictures, working on care packages things like that, when we moved overseas to Japan our kids were 7, 4, and 22 months, and our daughter the 22 month old had the hardest time, but what i did is I wrote letters for her and our 4 year old to daddy, I wrote what ever they said, whether it made since or not, and it helped, our 22 month old was 5 when her dad did his last deployment we were back in the states, but she started kindergarden which kept her busy, bed time was a little sad cause my husband always read to them at bed time, but I kept things as normal as possible, and I knew that if I was OK they would be OK. Let your kids e-mail daddy, I did, and they loved it. J.