Military and veteran family-centered preventive interventions and care: making meaning of experiences over time.

This commentary discusses key themes in four conceptually related papers in this special issue on military families. Individually, the papers highlight the importance of the experiences of young children, the vital role of family narratives, the need for effective communication in families with a combat-injured member, and the need to understand the many dimensions of grieving and loss. Taken together, they compellingly make the case for family-centered care approaches and interventions. They also emphasize the need for families to understand and make meaning together of the experiences they have undergone and that this is a long-term, ongoing, dynamic, and interactive process.