How a Parent Leaving the Forces Affects Their Children

No published study yet tells us how children fare specifically when a parent leaves the armed forces. The first UK study to ask that question, Next Steps, began in September 2025 and reports from September 2027. Until then, parents can draw on evidence about school moves, deployment and military family life, and on a defined set of UK and US support organisations.

What the Next Steps study is measuring

Next Steps is a two-year project funded by the Forces in Mind Trust and led by Dr Anne Chappell and Dr Ellen McHugh at Brunel University of London. According to the project announcement, it examines the experiences of children and young people aged 8 to 21 before, during and after a parent or guardian moves to civilian life. The plan includes a Youth Advisory Board of 12 young people aged 12 to 19, a questionnaire with a target of 500 responses, interviews with 30 children, 20 parents or guardians and 10 stakeholders, and eight focus groups. Data collection runs through to January 2027, analysis follows from February to June 2027, and the final report is due from September 2027.

The announcement estimates that over 120,000 children and young people in the UK have at least one parent or guardian serving in the armed forces. That figure covers all children of serving parents, and only some of them face a transition at any one time.

What the existing evidence covers

School moves (US data)

A 2014 review by Ruff and Keim in The Professional Counselor drew on a 2010 Department of Defense report. About 1.85 million US children have one or both parents in the military, and 1.2 million of them are aged 6 to 18. Military children change schools 6 to 9 times between kindergarten and high school graduation, about three times as often as civilian peers, and enrolment could take up to three weeks while a new school waited for records.

The review reports mixed outcomes. Frequent transitions can create academic gaps and make friendships harder to form. Some studies found that multiple transitions built adaptability and social skills, and one study found that students with five or more transitions still earned average to above-average grades when they had strong school and parental support. A Columbia University CPRL study for the Military Child Education Coalition combined a literature review with more than 70 interviews and identified transition challenges in four areas: administrative, social-emotional, academic and multi-agency.

Deployment and parental mental health (UK and US data)

RAND's Deployment Life Study found more emotional and behavioural problems in children during deployment, with most outcomes returning to baseline afterwards, and lasting parental worry about children's emotional wellbeing. The full figures sit in our article on deployment and family relationships. A UK study of 3,198 serving personnel with children under 18, listed as Perceptions of the impact a military career has on children, found that 51 percent of parents believed their career had a negative impact on their children. Probable PTSD, common mental disorder symptoms and long deployments were each linked to that view.

Children of veterans in adulthood

The first report of the UK Veterans Family Study found that no UK studies focus on the adult children of veterans. Studies from the US, Canada and Australia found these adult children were at risk of anxiety, depression, PTSD and alcohol or substance misuse. That evidence is not yet a UK picture, and the study's ongoing survey is open to veterans, partners and adult children.

Practical steps while a parent is leaving service

• Tell the school. Schools in England receive the Service Pupil Premium, worth £360 per service child in 2026 to 2027. Under the Ever 6 measure, funding can continue for up to six years or to the end of Year 11, whichever comes first, for children who were recorded as service children. The money supports all service children at the school, so ask the school how it uses it.
• Check records transfer. In the US, the Military Interstate Children’s Compact Commission sets shared rules on enrolment, placement and graduation for children of active-duty members and for children of members or veterans who were medically discharged or retired, for one year.
• Use the family-level support. The evidence says most about family-wide support, so the organisations below start with the whole family.

Support organisations for children and families

The UK veteran charities guide covers wider options. Relationship counselling for the parents is a family-level route in its own right, and the article on reconnecting with family sets out how to access it.

What the evidence leaves open

The data above describe serving families. Nothing yet shows how much a parent's move to civilian life changes a child's wellbeing, how long any effect lasts, or which supports work best. Parents who are worried about a child can talk to the school, a GP or the organisations above without waiting for Next Steps to report.