Imagine That your a four-year-old girl and your father has been part of the Brittish Army for more than a quarter of your life. Not being able to hug, kiss, or read a stroy to your young child must be terribly tough on not only you but also on the family that you have left behind. Everyone knows that seperation from a aparent can have detrimental effectson a child, but how about prolonged and sporadic abscences? Longer abscences can obviously be more damaging to a chid's emotional development. Fortunately, the Army is now trying to bring abscent parents home for a few hours per night; they are called the Storybook Soldiers.
Kristy Alderson who is an ex-Army officer and a team of volunteers travelled to Dartmoor to learn more about the fatehrs that were in the Army. With them they brought laptops, recording eqiupment, editing software and disks. She discussed how emotional some of the recording got. "You see these people-mainly men- day-to-day and well, they are soldiers who do a tough job, and yet here they are reading fairy tales in a cupboard!" She also commented about the need to be senstive because you are getting right in the middle of their personal (family) life. After the soldiers record the fair tales onto a disk, Kristy and her team then add music and sound effects. Not only do these recordings sooth the young children that they are directed toward, they also take the burden off of the other parent that is left at home with the child. The Army Welfare Service has stated that "...it can only have a positive effect on children who find it hard to understand why daddy... is not always there".
Kristy and her team of volunteers will soon be moving into Germany and hopefully will continue to other parts of world!
info taken from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6965657.stm
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