Military life is often characterised by long and unpredictable duty hours, relatively low pay for lower ranks, frequent family separations and relocations. This presentation will draw on early research that captures the complexity of parents’ and young children’s experience of being part of a military family. Risk factors in military families include family disruption owing to the cycle of deployment; poor mental health of the caregiving parent during the absence of the serving parent; PTSD and depression on the part of the serving parent post-deployment; as well as changing dynamics between the child’s parents as they renegotiate roles across the deployment cycle, and manage conflict as the family reorganises itself. Professor Mary Nolan brings the perspective of her work in the very early years to the lecture, and Dr. Gabriela Misca her long engagement with research into military life and military families. They will outline the challenges of the different phases of the deployment cycle, discuss what parents themselves have said about their coping strategies, and consider possible interventions to support these families.