Readiness
Month of the Military Child (MMC)
The Military Children World Expo each year joins the Department of Defense, National, State and Local governments, Military Serving Organizations, Companies and Private Citizens in celebrating Military Children (also, the military brats) worldwide, and the sacrifices they make. While military members around the world, and often around the clock, we can often forget the challenges faced by their children. Military families move on the average of two to three years, impacting military children through changing schools and support networks.
Readiness & Resiliency
Readiness & Resiliency - Military Children 2025 World Expo is a global awareness initiative designed to provide a comprehensive understanding of the experiences and challenges encountered by military families. Military families are, first and foremost, American families. As such, they are very similar to their civilian neighbors. Many need dual incomes to be financially secure, are concerned about their children's education and well-being, and want to establish roots and contribute to their communities. However, the unique demand of military service means families must serve and sacrifice along with their service member, and this results in exceptional issues and challenges for the entire military family.
Supporting military families strengthens national security and local communities and is vital to sustaining a healthy All-Volunteer Force. Toward this end, with help from its valued partners and supporting sponsors, The Military Children 2025 World Expo “Readiness & Resiliency", will accomplish its global awareness objective.
Through special events, workshops, speakers, and child serving organizations, this Expo is intended to identify key aspects of military life to effectively target resources, services, and programs that support the sustainability of military children, service, and the All-Volunteer Force; and facilitate a holistic understanding of service member, veterans, and military family experiences so that communities' legislators, and policy makers can better serve each of their unique needs.
The Military Children 2025 World Expo offers crucial insight to help inform national leaders, local communities, and philanthropic actors-functions that are even more important as decision makers assess how to support military children, military and veteran families. MCWE 2025 presents the opportunity to increase dialogue between the military community and broader American society by highlighting areas for improvement and offering solutions to bridge the civil-military divide, strengthen communities, and bolster the health and sustainability of military children (aka "military brats).
About The Military Child
“The 2025 theme for the Month of the Military Child World Expo is ‘Readiness & Resiliency.’ This event provides an opportunity to spotlight the well-being and experiences of military children, including youth, teens, and adults.
It's a lifestyle that can be challenging for the children. Despite these challenges, military children are an important part of our military and civilian communities. They provide support and stability to their parents and siblings, and they often become leaders within their peer groups. They learn to be self-reliant and independent - skills that will serve them well throughout their lives.
But it is not just children that have to learn to navigate these difficulties. The parents also must adapt to the stresses of military service in a way that works for them and their children.
Time is limited, even outside of deployment. When your day revolves around work, you learn to appreciate and balance the time where you are not focused on your profession. You learn to balance time for yourself and those who are most important to you. This challenge can be very different for the military member and their non-military spouse. As a military spouse, some would say the hardest challenges would be the transition (deployment) when you first leave and the transition when they come home. When they first leave you take on the battle to fill the roles of both parents. This becomes easier as the weeks go on as you establish a routine. Once they return there is a flood of emotions of excitement and joy, but there is also an adjustment as the routine is now changing again, things that once flowed smoothly with only one parent now shift as there are more needs to attend to.
Right now, there are roughly 1.7 million dependent military children across all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. About 1 million of these children are children of active duty servicemembers. The remaining 700,000 dependent military children are children of guard or reserve units. Over 650,000 of these military children are ages 5 or under. We have not included Veterans children or the adult military child.
In any branch of service, it all starts with people. Having our military and civilian personnel at their best starts with a strong support system at home. Command families aren’t just within the command walls, they’re bigger than that. The families at home play a key role in supporting military operations, and staff around the world so they can succeed in their duties.
Our aim is to create a global awareness of the Military Child on their "Readiness & Resiliency.
" By answering the question "How can we ensure their leadership development potential, and sustainable access to education, advocacy through representation and technological advancement. MCWE 2025 concluded "The Unstoppable Power" of a network of voices united in their commitment to support and enhance the well-being of military children.