Parental Deployment and Youth in Military Families: Exploring Uncertainty and Ambiguous Loss*

Abstract: Parental deployment has substantial effects on the family system, among them ambiguity and uncertainty. Youth in military families are especially affected by parental deployment because their coping repertoire is only just developing; the requirements of deployment become additive to normal adolescent developmental demands. Focus groups were used to inquire about uncertainty, loss, resilience, and adjustment among youth aged 12–18 that had a parent deployed, most often to a war zone. The nature of uncertainty and ambiguous loss was explored. Response themes included overall perceptions of uncertainty and loss, boundary ambiguity, changes in mental health, and relationship conflict. These accounts suggest that ambiguous loss is a useful concept for understanding the experien-ces of these youth and for structuring prevention and intervention efforts. Key Words: ambiguous loss, family theory, military families, youth resilience. Loss occurs in numerous contexts and under a variety of conditions. Often, what is common to these con-texts and conditions is uncertainty. An example of a complex situation of uncertainty and loss is found in the life of an adolescent who has a parent deployed to a war zone in the post-9/11 era becaus