“I have bad news,” my 29-year-old son, Hayden, said sullenly during a recent conversation. “The owners are putting the house back on the market.” Ever since graduating from college in 2018, Hayden has lived in an apartment in a Victorian house. When the owners, a group of adult sisters who inherited the house, told Hayden they might try to sell it, he was terrified.

The first time the sisters put the house on the market, they allowed Hayden to continue to rent month-to-month. This uncertainty was a constant worry Hayden was unable to shake, and our assurances that everything would be fine fell on deaf ears. That first attempt to sell failed, much to Hayden’s relief. But only a few months later, the sisters decided to try again. When Hayden gave us the bad news, my husband and I could hear fear in his voice again.

“They said I could stay until spring, but then I’ll have to move out,” he said as if moving was a dire fate. “I’m not sure what to do,” he repeated. “If things go wrong, could I stay here temporarily and pay you rent?”

“Of course you can, and you don’t have to pay! But you’ll be able to find a new place. Maybe even better than your apartment now!” we assured him. From the look on his face, we could see that it would take a lot more to convince our son that moving was not the end of the world.

Why, we wondered, would our son, a brilliant, independent, responsible software engineer with a great career and bright future, be so scared of moving? The answer was obvious: Hayden was a military brat. Our Navy family moved frequently during his vulnerable adolescent years, when he attended three different high schools.

Despite his gifted intelligence, his Eagle Scout status and our family’s constant emotional support, Hayden was impacted by those military moves during his teen years. While we’ve never had him psychoanalyzed for evidence of metothesiaphobia (fear of change), it doesn’t take a Ph.D. to see that the mere thought of moving causes our son an irrational amount of stress. Over the years, we’ve seen signs that our smart and successful adult son might be overly anxious, or possibly, depressed.

Military children are resilient, but how much of their resilience is forced? They don’t have a choice. They aren’t in control. They must move when their service member parents receive orders to move. They must hide their fear. They must change schools. They must make new friends. They must be the new kids, again and again.

So, when the child becomes an independent adult, with the power to control his own life, will he react differently when facing fear? Will he remember the stress of those childhood moves and do everything in his power to avoid experiencing it again now that he can?

Can military child resilience turn into adult avoidance?

The National Military Family Association (NMFA) and Bloom Military Teens recently released the results of their annual Military Teen Experience Survey (MTES). The 2024 results showed “that only 8% of military teens report high mental well-being, while a staggering 35% are struggling with low well-being.”

Like Hayden did, many military teens internalize their stress. The MTES results “uncovered an alarming trend in self-harm behavior among military teens,” revealing that “half of respondents (45%) reported engaging in self-harm,” far exceeding the global rate of adolescent self-harm of 18%. The MTES researchers describe self-harm as a maladaptive coping mechanism that is “an attempt to externalize the emotional pain they feel from the instability in their lives.”

“[T]his year’s MTES paints a picture of adolescents under tremendous emotional strain,” the survey concluded. The MTES results, coupled with a study released in August concluding that childhood moving is associated with the likelihood of developing adult depression, indicate that resilient military children may not always become resilient adults.

“I might buy a house,” Hayden called to announce last week. Our recent talks about moving and a few emails listing apartments for rent had paid off. It took a little extra time and thought, but Hayden eventually realized that by embracing change, he controls his own destiny.

Read more at themeatandpotatoesoflife.com and in Lisa’s book, “The Meat and Potatoes of Life: My True Lit Com.” Email: meatandpotatoesoflife@gmail.com