Another day into a PCS, and everyone is another day closer to a breakdown. If you have felt this way before, well, you are not alone. Luckily, our friend Elmo and the whole neighborhood at Sesame Street are here to help.
Military life is full of transitions that bring on many challenges and test our limits. It’s a constant cycle of change. One day, you are settling into a new duty station, the next, you are solo parenting during a deployment, and then you are getting ready to pack up and do it all over again. For young kids, these changes can bring on all the emotions and can create ruptures in their routines. Wouldn’t it be nice to take on new healthy habits in an easy way that the whole family can enjoy?
This is why Sesame Street for Military Families is stepping in, bringing friends like Elmo, Rosita, Grover, and Julia to help.
Sesame Street for Military Families’ new “Healthy, Happy, Ready” resource is a collaboration between Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street, and the Department of Defense, Office of Military Family and Community Policy. This useful resource is like having Elmo and friends in your corner when life gets a little unpredictable (which, let’s be honest, happens quite a lot for military families).
It is a totally free, bilingual (English and Spanish) website packed with videos, articles, printable activities, and tools to help families handle everything the military throws their way.
From daily routines to those big military milestones and challenges, like deployments, homecomings, PCS, and even tough topics like grief. This resource is a comprehensive website that has evolved since its inception in 2006, when Sesame Street aimed to support our military community, with a focus on deployments.
The initiative took off, doing wonderfully for military families, helping us navigate other aspects of our lives, such as our children’s resilience, promoting overall health and well-being, and strengthening family connections while also addressing homecomings, visible and invisible injuries, and grief.
This is real help. Practical, hands-on, research-based, kid-approved, and made with military families in mind.
Frequent relocations, emotional strain during deployments, disrupted routines, mental and physical wellness… we have endured it all as military families. This is why high-quality resources are essential for our community. It is important to have structure and bonding time through the routines set up for our children. Not only was Sesame Street for Military Families created for our community, but it took our own feedback and pointers to accomplish this and become mission-ready for children and parents alike.
Healthy, happy, and ready is more than just a digital toolkit; it is a lifeline of support, sharing different ways in which our community can navigate many parts of our lifestyle. Military families’ readiness encompasses many categories, which is why this toolkit shares a variety of resources, including videos, printables, activities, recipes, articles, and more.
Their engaging videos and child-appropriate content are a wonderful guide to eating healthy and staying active together. Their easy, kid-friendly recipes will have everyone hands-on in the kitchen sharing delicious and nutritious meals that are kid-approved. Printables are such a fun addition: weekly meal planning, getting creative on how to plant a kitchen garden, and learning to stay fit and active, along with your military kids.
These materials are available 24/7 and are very user-friendly, making it easy for you to navigate all the content. This interactive and supportive toolkit shares practical sections that the whole family will enjoy.
Military families across the country and overseas have been using Sesame Street for Military Families and notice the vast difference it makes when you are prepared to handle big emotions and changes. Real-world impact and testimonials are important, and this is where all the feedback and data behind this resource matter.
This resource helps parents and military kids create structure, providing comfort and connection at the same time, which is much needed in our community. This isn’t just another military-related toolkit; it’s research-backed parenting support that is interactive, engaging, and fun. Whether you are a dual-military family, a single-parent household, a family new to the military, or just trying to build better habits for your family, Sesame Street for Military Families meets you where you are.
Like the classic theme song says, “Sunny days, sweeping the clouds away,” these tools are about bringing light into the tough moments and helping families create calm, connection, and resilience together.
To learn more, visit https://sesamestreetformilitaryfamilies.org and www.militaryonesource.mil
