How Families Cope How Families Cope Program Transcript BETSY FLANIGAN: I think his returning was much more difficult than his being away, as far as affecting the family dynamic. Although we missed him-- I certainly missed him terribly-- but when he returned, he was this very strong military person who took no excuse. Neither of us realized that he was an alcoholic at that point. And perhaps it wasn't as pronounced then. I can't remember. But yes, it affected things certainly. And it would've been better if he had not been drinking. DESMOND W. FLANIGAN: I haven't had a drink now in six years. The reason I stopped was because my family came to me, my wife and my daughter came to me, and said, dad, you are drunk. I didn't realize I was an alcoholic until then. But thinking back, I realize that it affected them, that they must have been on tenterhooks whenever dad came home, especially on a Friday night. And dad had a couple. And dad would either get very morose and angry and yell. And I thought that we enjoyed the military. But there was that undercurrent, that kind of fear is, what the hell do you gotta do tonight. And I didn't realize that. BETSY FLANIGAN: I think the main thing was his being strict. And it's hard for couples, no matter whether they're military or not, I think to come together and agree on how to discipline certain things. DESMOND W. FLANIGAN: One of the things that helped our family, in the army culture or the military culture, is the natural support system. Betsy had nothing to do with the military until we married. She came onto post. She was almost immediately welcomed by the other wives. MICHAEL WILKINSON: Some of the services that are available for family members, not just military members, is Fleet and Family Services. They have a lot of programs. One, they have a program that helps new parents. KRISTIN WILKINSON: Both of my children had different experiences with the military. And both of them, I think, had different reactions, different effects from living the military life. Our oldest daughter, Brittany, my stepdaughter, has a chronic medical condition. She was born with respiratory papillomas. And she required multiple, multiple surgeries since she was an infant. And this was a chronic condition that also resulted in scar tissue on her vocal cords, which permanently damaged the vocal cords. Therefore, she cannot articulate. And she cannot get out a full speech. Therefore, she has a lot of whisper. She has a lot of raspiness in her voice. © 2014 Laureate Education, Inc. 1 How Families Cope MICHAEL WILKINSON: For somebody with her condition, not able to speak as much, it was very hard. So she didn't make friends as fast. It hurt her more, just because the one stable person, which was me, wasn't there the whole time. And I was gone for so long. KRISTIN WILKINSON: As she got further into her adolescence, it was starting to decrease. The s ...

1. How Families Cope
How Families Cope
Program Transcript
BETSY FLANIGAN: I think his returning was much more
difficult than his being
away, as far as affecting the family dynamic. Although we
missed him-- I certainly
missed him terribly-- but when he returned, he was this very

2. strong military
person who took no excuse. Neither of us realized that he was
an alcoholic at
that point. And perhaps it wasn't as pronounced then. I can't
remember. But yes,
it affected things certainly. And it would've been better if he
had not been
drinking.
DESMOND W. FLANIGAN: I haven't had a drink now in six
years. The reason I
stopped was because my family came to me, my wife and my
daughter came to
me, and said, dad, you are drunk. I didn't realize I was an
alcoholic until then.
But thinking back, I realize that it affected them, that they must
have been on
tenterhooks whenever dad came home, especially on a Friday
night. And dad
had a couple. And dad would either get very morose and angry
and yell.
And I thought that we enjoyed the military. But there was that
undercurrent, that
kind of fear is, what the hell do you gotta do tonight. And I
didn't realize that.
BETSY FLANIGAN: I think the main thing was his being strict.
And it's hard for
couples, no matter whether they're military or not, I think to
come together and
agree on how to discipline certain things.
DESMOND W. FLANIGAN: One of the things that helped our
family, in the army

3. culture or the military culture, is the natural support system.
Betsy had nothing to
do with the military until we married. She came onto post. She
was almost
immediately welcomed by the other wives.
MICHAEL WILKINSON: Some of the services that are
available for family
members, not just military members, is Fleet and Family
Services. They have a
lot of programs. One, they have a program that helps new
parents.
KRISTIN WILKINSON: Both of my children had different
experiences with the
military. And both of them, I think, had different reactions,
different effects from
living the military life. Our oldest daughter, Brittany, my
stepdaughter, has a
chronic medical condition. She was born with respiratory
papillomas. And she
required multiple, multiple surgeries since she was an infant.
And this was a chronic condition that also resulted in scar tissue
on her vocal
cords, which permanently damaged the vocal cords. Therefore,
she cannot
articulate. And she cannot get out a full speech. Therefore, she
has a lot of
whisper. She has a lot of raspiness in her voice.
© 2014 Laureate Education, Inc. 1

4. How Families Cope
MICHAEL WILKINSON: For somebody with her condition, not
able to speak as
much, it was very hard. So she didn't make friends as fast. It
hurt her more, just
because the one stable person, which was me, wasn't there the
whole time. And
I was gone for so long.
KRISTIN WILKINSON: As she got further into her
adolescence, it was starting to
decrease. The surgeries became less because she was starting to
grow out of

5. this condition to a point. But the damage already to the vocal
cords had been
there. So we had looked at different options of getting some
replacement vocal
cords and having some fat deposits placed into the vocal cords
to strengthen
them.
It was hard because she was tired of going through the
surgeries. And she was
tired of not having a voice. She was tired of having all those
things, and she was
frustrated to have to constantly go to see her medical doctors.
We got to the point where I sat with her ENT, her ear, nose, and
throat specialist,
and he explained to me that she cannot whisper, which she
tended to always
revert back to because it was more comfortable. She didn't want
to put the effort
out to making her voice stronger. I sat down with her, and I
went through exactly
what the doctor told me. She said, no, that's not true. If my dad
was here, I could
listen to what he had to say.
MICHAEL WILKINSON: We have a good father daughter
relationship. And when
I was deployed, I think she missed that.
KRISTIN WILKINSON: When Michael would come back from
the deployment, he
always wanted things to be fun. He wanted to enjoy the time
with the kids. He
wanted everything to be happy, everything to be wonderful.

6. But he came back during a time once where Brittany was
grounded. And he
didn't want her to be grounded anymore. So he says well, it's
OK. Well, let's go
ahead, I just got back from deployment. Let's go ahead and all
go out to dinner.
And let's all go-- It's OK. How about if we end her grounded
two days early. And
that was really difficult because she would sit there back going,
my dad's home.
My dad's home. And I would sit there and look like a fool.
In the beginning, it was extremely hard because we were just
newly married. And
I was fearful that well, if I really made her angry, and we really
had a bad
relationship, what's it going to do to our relationship because
we're so newly
married and we're in this deployment situation and we have this
brand new
baby? I just sit there and let it go.
And then finally, about the third one I said, we can't do this
anymore. It's just
creating havoc. And Brittany's just getting away with a lot of
things. And she's just
standing back there thumbing her nose at me. And it didn't help
her grow as an
© 2014 Laureate Education, Inc. 2

7. How Families Cope
individual. And it was keeping her from learning the
responsibility and what she
needed.
And for Bella it was-- she was a baby. But still, babies still
needed to have the
routines. And he wanted to break some of the routines
sometimes because he
just wanted to spend time with her. And so she threw something
across the
room, wasn't a big deal.

8. So sometimes it was really, really hard. Because I had to be the
disciplinarian.
And sometimes it just was really hard when he'd come home,
and he'd want to
do things very differently.
So how we ended up coping with it was I started emailing him
when he was on
deployment. And I started telling him, this is what's going on.
This is what the
rules I set in. And I need you to follow it when you come home.
And once we
started really getting into that cycle, it started working much
better. And so it
really helped our relationship, and it helped keep things
consistent for Brittany
and for the girls.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
How Families Cope
Additional Content Attribution
Images used with permission of Kristin Wilkinson.
Flanigan , D. (n.d.). Flanigan Images [Photographs]. Images
used with
permission of Desmond Flanigan.
MUSIC:
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9. Narrator Tracks Music Library
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Signature Music, Inc
Chesterton, IN
Studio Cutz Music Library
Carrollton, TX
© 2014 Laureate Education, Inc. 3
How Families Cope
© 2014 Laureate Education, Inc. 4