Air Beat Magazine - Journal of the
Airborne Law Enforcement Association
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DIFFERENT LIFESTYLES
How To Help Family Deal With Stress
By Tania Glenn, Readiness Group International
Critical incidents have deep and lasting effects on law enforcement
officers. Anyone who has been
through a line of duty death or some sort of aviation disaster knows that
the impact and ripple effects are both powerful and long lasting, and are
not limited to those who are directly serving.
Families of pilots and ground officers also suffer during critical
events. Spouses, children and loved ones experience what we call secondary
traumatic stress, or vicarious traumatization. This is when family members
see, hear or experience the trauma that you have sustained because of their
closeness to you. In turn, they begin to experience many of the same
reactions, including anger, grief, fear and anxiety. In the case of a line
of duty death, your loved ones may transition from being supportive of your
career to being hesitant and fearful about what you do. The question, “What
if it happens to you?” resonates every time you put on your uniform and go
back to work.
Because of the nature of the work, successful law enforcement families
must adapt to a different sort of lifestyle. This includes interesting
schedules, missed holidays, and dinner conversation that other families
would be shocked to overhear, just to name a few. In addition to this, your
families also must accommodate a higher level of stress because of what you
do. Law enforcement spouses have a very different outlook and lifestyle than
their counterparts whose spouses work “regular” jobs.
It is imperative that, in the aftermath of a critical event, spouses are
given the chance to debrief as well. Critical Incident Stress Management
teams now typically consist not only of the trained peer counselors, but
also of trained spouses who can come to the aid of your loved ones when they
are affected. In addition to this, it is important for couples that go
through a major event to continue to communicate and support each other.
Sometimes, this is much easier said than done. We should never assume that
because our families are flexible and handle stress like pros, they are
immune
to having their own sets of reactions.
Your children maintain this different lifestyle as well. They adjust to
your schedules just as much as your partners do. They also have a different
status with their peers. Many young children dream of becoming policemen,
firefighters or astronauts. Your children hold a certain rank over the kids
sitting around them, whose parents are accountants, computer programmers,
and salesmen.
Unfortunately, when a major incident happens, the responses of other
children toward your own can be brutal. I have worked with the sons and
daughters of police officers who have been shouted at and blamed after local
police officers (not their parents) have had to shoot teenagers or were
involved in collisions that killed children.
Your children depend on you to take extra good care of them after a major
event. This includes allowing them to express their feelings, talking to
them openly and honestly in terms that they can understand, forewarning
their teachers about what has occurred and allowing them to see counselors
if they need to. One flight paramedic told me that even though he and his
wife had kept quiet about his organization’s recent crash while at home, his
four-year-old son had started drawing pictures of crashed helicopters since
the day of the incident. Trust me, your children are fully aware of what is
going on.
Including your family in the recovery process is an important part of any
critical incident. As families get through these troubled times, the
potential for growth and family cohesiveness is profound.
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