I’m writing this from my sister’s dining table. Despite the depth of Australian winter, sun streams through the high windows, gradually moving across a beautiful original artwork by a local indigenous artist here in the central desert region of the country.
Over the past six weeks here I’ve leaned into my own artist heart by spending hours sitting in the beautiful red desert landscape, painting watercolours. If you’ve ever painted with watercolours yourself, you’ll know there is a lot of patience required. I paint a layer, wait for it to dry, then paint the next layer, slowly building a picture layer by layer, one colour at a time.
During this time as I’ve sat down at my computer, I’ve leaned into a different part of my heart, one with a different kind of artistry – data analysis. While research and data analysis may not sound as artistic, entrancing, and interesting to you as it does to me, it is something I am passionate about.
There is something akin to the patient layer-building of watercolour painting. The most interesting and important answers don’t come to light immediately. Yet as I filter and layer the huge amounts of data offered to us by the adult TCK community, pictures begin to emerge. In this post I am going to share with you just one of the pictures emerging over the last few months.
Surveying TCK Experiences
In our cumulative decades of work with TCKs, we’ve heard some things repeated time and time again — opinions about their parents, opinions about their childhood, joys and struggles. When we developed our latest survey, we drew on that experience to see how widely certain sentiments were shared.
Among them, we offered four key statements related to a sense of identity with parents’ work:
- “That I belonged to something greater than myself (identified with their work/purpose)”
- “Proud of my parent’s work”
- “Desire to ‘follow in their footsteps’ in some way when I grew up”
- “Indifferent to my parent’s occupation abroad (no different to anywhere else)”
We also offered four key statements around various stressors related to their experiences living overseas during childhood:
- “Pressure to be ‘perfect’ as my behavior reflected on my parent’s employer”
- “Anxiety as a result of duties assigned to me (i.e. tour guide, translator)”
- “Pressure to ‘perform’ while visiting our passport country”
- “Worry that misbehavior on my part might result in our family having to leave the country”
From this we had some wonderful initial stats, and some troubling initial stats – all of which we shared in our First Look research report. With more analysis over time, deeper connections led to a discernible pattern: groups who identified strongly with their parents’ work and purpose abroad also carried higher levels of stress, anxiety and/or pressure connected to it.
Similarly, the more indifferent a group was to their parents’ occupation abroad, the less likely they were to experience these pressures. For example, TCKs who grew up in corporate families were far less likely to express a sense of connection to their parents’ employment; in fact, nearly half said they were “indifferent” to their parents’ work, and only 16% felt a sense of belonging/purpose connected to it. Yet corporate TCKs were also far less likely to feel the various pressures listed above. “There seemed to be benefits to this ‘disconnect’ from parents’ occupation” (Corporate Adult TCKs & Mental Health: First Look at the 2024 Research).
What This Means for Missionary Families
This pattern is crucial when we talk about missionary kids. Missionary kids expressed a really strong connection to their parents’ work abroad – something most of us want to see and encourage! Three quarters of missionary kids felt proud of their parents’ work, and they also identified with the sense of purpose it created; more than half wanted to follow in their parents’ footsteps. Only 10% of missionary kids said they were “indifferent” to their parents’ work (Adult Missionary Kids & Mental Health: First Look at the 2024 Research). These are statistics to make hearts that love missions and missionary families leap for joy.
And yet.
More than half of missionary kids felt pressure to be ‘perfect’ while living abroad (compared to a quarter of corporate TCKs).
Even more missionary kids felt pressure to “perform” when they visited their passport countries. More than any other sector of TCKs – in fact, more than twice as likely than most other sectors, including corporate TCKs.
Why does this happen?
Let’s think about one missionary kid, rather than the huge group who contributed to this survey. Think of a child or teenager who is very proud of the missionary work their parents do. They feel their whole family is involved in this work, and so they feel a sense of connection, of being part of this work, and derive a sense of purpose from being in this overseas country in order to do this work.
Because of their emotional investment in this work, they will naturally develop a sense of responsibility for the work. They want to do what they can do to help. But what does that mean, when their day looks like going to school and being part of the community? Perhaps they even ask their parents how they might contribute. And their parents let them know that simply living their everyday lives as witnesses is powerful.
Because children can easily extrapolate concepts well beyond what well-meaning adults intended, soon we have a child who has internalised the idea that everything they say and do in public impacts the work their parents – their whole family – is doing. Slowly, they feel a burden of responsibility that goes beyond the everyday witness their parents intended.
Or perhaps think of a child who enjoys their life overseas but suddenly finds themself in their passport country for home assignment. Every weekend they stand in front of a new group of strangers (some of whom call them by name and act like they know everything their family does) and perform stories or songs of what they do in the “foreign country” that is the only home they know. They field odd questions, talk about daily routines to laughter and astonishment, and throughout it all make sure to smile brightly because they realise at least on some level that their family’s livelihood depends on these people who know nothing about their life.
A child who on the outside seems to be invested in the mission and well behaved may be carrying a heavy burden of stress on the inside.
Leaning in with Intentional Care
Praising the benefits of missionary life without acknowledging the difficulties does missionary families and missionary kids a disservice. The picture emerging from the data is that these two sides of missionary kid life are connected. Understanding that this connection exists allows us to be intentional about providing targeted preventive care that supports missionary kids and their families.
A Life Overseas is a great repository of resources for missionaries, member carers, and supporting churches. This includes a range of articles that acknowledge potential pitfalls in seeing missionary kids as extensions of their missionary parents. Three great examples of this are My Kids are Not Little Missionaries, 3 Ways to Care for the Heart of Your Missionary Kid and Don’t Call Your Kids World Changers.
Another way to help MKs with internalized pressures is by asking great questions to facilitate open and honest communication. A Life Overseas also has some great posts with suggestions for questions to ask TCKs – whether you are a parent, a caregiver, or a supporter in a church lobby! These include: 10 Questions to Routinely Ask Your TCKs, 10 Questions Missionary Kids Would Love to be Asked, and Questions Third Culture Kids and Their Parents Love.
Of course, we always recommend learning about Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) and their proven relationship to long-term wellness. TCK Training offers a free video miniseries on PCEs designed to help parents implement these fundamentals intentionally in a globally mobile life.
Meanwhile, I continue to paint – with watercolours and with data – as I complete a few projects that mean the world to me. I’ve been teaching my nine-year-old niece to paint watercolours, while painting a local ring-necked parrot she ‘commissioned’ from me.
And after months of painstakingly layering data analysis, I have completed new research on Protective Factors that Improve Long Term Wellness in TCKs (launching September 16th, 2025). You may not be a painter, but I hope you enjoy the picture painted in this research report. It provides joy and hope for all of us caring for the hearts of TCKs around the world.
