The temporary absence of a parent (e.g., due to incarceration, migration, or military deployment) is experienced by many youth and can have profound effects. Available research within these disparate literatures primarily has catalogued contextual and individual variables that influence youth adaptation, which are integrated and summarized here. In addition, we present a systematic review of proximal family processmechanisms by which youth and their family members adapt to periods of temporary parent absence. This systematic review across the different types of parent absence produced four themes: communication among family members, parenting characteristics during absence, negotiation of decision-making power and authority, and shifts in family roles. By juxtaposing the three types of temporary parent absence, we aim to bridge the separate research silos of parent absence due to incarceration, deployment, and migration, and to bring wide-ranging characteristics and processes of temporary parent-absent families into sharper focus. The review highlights possibilities for fuller integration of these literatures, and emphasizes the clinical value of considering these types of experiences from a family and relational perspective, rather than an individual coping perspective. © 2014, Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Temporary parent absence Military deployment Migration Family relations incarceration

role playing human military family Adaptation, Psychological parental deprivation Maternal Deprivation Humans psychology Adolescent Behavior adaptive behavior Parenting prison Family Relations Prisons migration family relation Paternal Deprivation Emigration and Immigration decision making Power (Psychology) Military Personnel soldier child parent relation Role Child