Balfour Beatty Community Center to host Relating to Children workshop Published June 18, 2013 By Airman 1st Class Sam Fogleman 92nd Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs FAIRCHILD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. -- Readjusting to life at home after a deployment can be a difficult task, as many service members can attest. For those with children, the problematic issue of a deployment becomes at least doubly stressful. During the recent era of multiple deployments to several combat zones around the world, the toll taken on military families has been tremendous. For the children of deployed service members, the absence of a parent mixed with the anxiety of concern for their parent can be a weight that their fragile psyches can scarcely comprehend. The question also looms of how to reconnect with young ones after a deployment. "We've had a lot of airmen come back from deployment, and the kids are afraid of them," said Breezy Tottenhoff, AmeriCorps volunteer to the Red Cross with Service to Armed Forces. "It's sad for a parent to come back and they don't have that connection." To help alleviate some of the commonplace problems associated with deployments of those with children, the American Red Cross in conjunction with the Airman & Family Readiness Center will be facilitating a workshop called Relating to Children. The workshop will be held at the Balfour Beatty Community Center at Fairchild from 2:00-3:30 p.m. Friday, June 28. "Relating to Children allows parents to understand the stressors their children go through during a deployment and how to best reconnect with them, no matter the age," said Tottenhoff. The workshop will involve small group post-deployment support and skill building for military families. Free childcare and refreshments will be available. The workshop is part of the Reconnection Workshops series presented by Walmart. To register or learn more, contact Breezy Tottenhoff at the American Red Cross' Inland Northwest Chapter at 509-326-3330x202.