Tag: parenting TCKs

Neurodiversity in the World of TCKs

You might be wondering why addressing neurodivergence in the context of ministry is an important endeavor. I get it — I’ve wondered too! The best answer I can offer is this: because neurodivergent children and adults live among us. Because they are cherished by God and worthy of our investment of time and effort. And because ignorance is not bliss — it can fracture God’s Kingdom with misunderstandings, conflict, and the withholding of empathy.

If only because it grows us into loving better and more thoughtfully, I believe that learning more about the humans around us is a spiritual practice and God-given privilege. 

NEURODIVERSITY IN THE WORLD OF TCKs

There is a particular kind of exhaustion many globally mobile families experience. The kind that feels linked—sometimes in obscure ways—to that third airport security line, that calendar-busting conference, that language-learning plateau, that brutal goodbye to friends we may not see again, that moment your child dissolves into tears because the cereal tastes different in this country, or that weather pattern that sucks the life out of everyday activities.

In the cross-cultural community, we tend to tell ourselves that it’s transition stress. Culture shock. Jet lag. Grief. And often, it is—or a combination of them all.

But there can also be something more complex happening beneath the surface. Something quieter, more deeply wired into the way a child experiences the world—or, in the case of MKs, multiple worlds.

What is neurodivergence?

In recent years, conversations around neurodiversity have become far more common. Current estimates suggest that between 15% and 20% of the population may be neurodivergent, so it’s no wonder that efforts to deepen our understanding are expanding.

At its simplest, neurodivergence means that a brain functions differently from what is considered usual or “typical.” Neurodiversity embraces the idea that everybody’s brain works uniquely and that neurodivergence is a normal variation.

ADHD, autism, OCD, dyslexia, sensory processing differences, dyscalculia, traumatic brain injury, and other neurological differences can all fall under this broad umbrella. Neurodivergence can show up in countless ways—from sensory overwhelm and learning differences to intense creativity, diminished executive function, or information processing that differs from that of brains considered more “typical.”

The Strengths of Neurodivergence

Though neurological differences were formerly viewed simply as deficits, researchers and clinicians now understand neurodivergence as part of the natural variation of human brains—producing unique strengths as well as unique challenges.

It’s important to remember that these same TCKs wrestling with layers of difference often possess extraordinary gifts.

In her article At the Intersection: Navigating Neurodivergence and Third Culture Kids, Dr. Kristen Williamson highlights the creativity, innovation, empathy, deep focus, and problem-solving abilities that frequently accompany neurodivergence. The child who notices details everyone else misses. The teenager who learns languages through patterns and rhythms. The young adult whose emotional sensitivity allows them to connect deeply across cultures.

Sometimes the very wiring that makes life more complicated also allows a child to experience beauty, excel academically, analyze complex data, and respond with empathy more naturally than the rest of us do.

The Relief of Diagnosis

Of the adult TCKs interviewed for this article and its accompanying video, most weren’t diagnosed until adulthood. Sometimes diagnosis came after burnout. After reentry. After struggles in higher education. Or after years of wondering why ordinary life seemed to require extraordinary effort.

For many neurodivergent people and their families, diagnosis itself is not the devastating moment they feared. Often, it brings relief—because there is finally language for their strengths and challenges. There is an explanation for why transitions feel catastrophic rather than merely difficult. Why noise feels physically painful. Why social interaction requires marathon-level energy. Why someone can appear perfectly composed in public and completely unravel at home.

Neurodivergence in Cross-Cultural Spaces

For Third Culture Kids, neurodivergence can create a particularly layered experience because so much of TCK life already requires constant adaptation. New schools. New languages. New social rules. New expectations. New relationships. New losses.

Indian writer and advocate Nanyadiri, who is autistic and has ADHD (AuDHD), describes the autistic TCK life as “a difference inside a difference.” The phrase captures something globally mobile families recognize in their children with neurodivergence: some are not merely learning to adapt across cultures; they are trying to navigate a world that may already have been unpredictable, confusing, or painfully loud—and now it is exponentially more overwhelming.

Transition is one of the greatest challenges for neurodivergent TCKs. Airports. Temporary housing. Shifting routines. New foods. Unfamiliar smells. Different classroom expectations. New cultural customs. All the unpredictability that globally mobile families eventually normalize can feel deeply dysregulating.

For some children, the adventure of it all feels exhilarating. But for others, it might feel more like being forced to stand in the chaos of Times Square at rush hour—with strangers yelling questions, street vendors selling unfamiliar things, friends pushing new foods at their faces, and a thunderous storm assailing them with rain and wind—all while realizing that everything familiar (people, places, routines, their own bed) is no longer within reach.

Now imagine trying to manage that 24/7—without protective filters, escape routes, or loved ones who understand how exhausting it is.

The Tangled Strands of TCKness and Neurodivergence

The challenges don’t end with transition. For those who love TCKs with autism, OCD, ADHD, and other forms of neurodivergence, distinguishing brain differences from cross-cultural traits can be difficult.

The impact of neurodivergence, trauma, and chronic stress can sometimes look remarkably similar. Frequent moves, unresolved grief, political instability, educational disruption, repeated upheaval, and abuse can all affect a child’s nervous system. Meanwhile, globally mobile life itself already looks unconventional.

A child who struggles socially may be assumed to be adjusting to a new culture. A child overwhelmed in crowds may be labeled sensitive. Executive-functioning difficulties may be blamed on transition stress rather than recognized as part of ADHD or autism.

Jenilee Goodwin, a fellow A Life Overseas writer, notes in How to Notice Neurodiversity in Third Culture Kids that neurodivergent TCKs often slip under the radar for precisely this reason. Sometimes what we’re seeing really is TCK struggle. Sometimes it is an expression of an underlying brain difference. Quite frequently, it is a combination of both.

This is why untangling the strands of TCKness and neurodivergence is so complicated. It takes time, learning, wisdom, and often an investment of effort and funds in professional evaluation. Understanding the “why” behind a child’s behavior is essential to providing support that addresses their actual needs rather than applying strategies that may exacerbate their struggles.

Knowing more can change the entire conversation from frustration to compassion—and then to appropriate action.

The Realities of Masking

Another reason neurodivergence gets missed in cross-cultural communities is that so many children become exceptionally good at masking. Especially TCKs. Especially bright, capable, adaptable children who are praised for maturity and flexibility.

Girls, in particular, are often missed because their struggles don’t match traditional stereotypes of neurodivergence. Rather than appearing disruptive or hyperactive, many become experts at people-pleasing, perfectionism, emotional caretaking, or quiet overachievement. They may look socially successful while privately rehearsing conversations, analyzing interactions, and becoming chronically exhausted from trying to make coping appear effortless.

In missionary and ministry environments, children who mask well may be celebrated as adaptable, mature, helpful, and selfless while carrying extraordinary levels of internal stress.

And boys can mask too—especially thoughtful, sensitive boys who learn early that emotional overwhelm or social confusion feels unsafe to reveal. But because many people still picture neurodivergence primarily as a loud little boy bouncing off classroom walls, quieter presentations are frequently overlooked altogether.  

So many neurodivergent TCKs are working tirelessly behind the scenes to appear “fine.” They study social expectations. They rehearse conversations. They observe peers and imitate what seems socially acceptable. They hold themselves together all day and then collapse emotionally once they reach home.

Psychologist Laura Mannucci captures this beautifully in Belonging in Translation: Autism, ADHD, and the Hidden Labor of Adapting Across Cultures: “When you have learned to mirror others to belong, the authentic self becomes hard to locate.”

The immense mental effort required to constantly decode cultural expectations while also navigating neurodivergence becomes, as Mannucci describes it, “an ongoing negotiation between worlds.” For many TCKs, that hidden hypervigilance becomes a way of life—and an exhausting drain on their energy.

What Neurodivergent TCKs Need from All of Us

According to the TCKs I interviewed, one of the gentlest shifts parents can make is moving from disciplining difference to approaching it with curiosity. Instead of asking, “Why is my child overreacting?” ask, “What might this situation feel like inside my child’s nervous system? What could be the reason for that?” Instead of rewarding the masking that allows children to appear more “typical,” invest time, effort, and funding into the kind of research and testing that might uncover liberating answers.

And then extend love—because there are far too many neurodivergent TCKs who believe their brain difference is failure, weakness, or even sin. We as a community need to speak—and be—the antidote to those destructive lies.

So what can we actually do?

Throughout ministry life, small changes can foster stability and safety: limiting social commitments, building in respite, creating quiet spaces and predictable routines, reducing toxic stress where possible, educating siblings and community members, and supporting activities that allow for regulation and expression—art, movement, writing, creating, organizing, inventing, or analyzing.

Even adjusting family menus to accommodate intolerable textures and tastes can matter. For some autistic children, this isn’t simply a food preference; it is a visceral inability to get past the texture or taste.

Jenilee Goodwin encourages families in transition to build predictability wherever possible: visual schedules, familiar foods, comfort objects, advance warning before changes, recovery time after overstimulation, and small rituals carried from country to country.

These things may sound insignificant to people who function more typically, but to a neurodivergent child, they can feel like safety in the swirling center of threatening chaos.

Parents may also need to reevaluate expectations around pace and productivity. Many neurodivergent TCKs can technically endure crowded schedules, rapid travel, stimulating ministry environments, and constant social interaction—while paying an invisible emotional cost.

A child may be coping remarkably well on the outside while quietly unraveling internally. 

But there’s a huge difference between surviving and flourishing.

The Beauty in the Difference

Goodwin’s articles emphasize the importance of helping children understand their own brains with dignity and compassion. Neurodivergent children need language that frames their differences not as personal failures, but as part of their unique wiring. Dr. Williamson argues that when neurodivergent TCKs receive understanding and support, many develop exceptional resilience, intercultural awareness, empathy, and creativity.

When I speak with adult TCKs who received a diagnosis about what they wish someone had told them sooner, they point to the crucial importance of parents and loved ones affirming who they are—and rejecting the lies the world and their own inner voice might inflict on them.

Perhaps one of the most hopeful truths emerging from these conversations is that many neurodivergent TCK adults—with affirmation, care, support, and therapy—eventually come to see their differences not merely as obstacles, but as part of the very wiring that shaped their strengths. The sensitivity that once led to overwhelm becomes empathy. Hyper-awareness becomes emotional intelligence. The lifelong practice of observing cultures and decoding people becomes insight and wisdom.

The traits that complicated childhood can become part of what allows these adults to move through the world with unusual compassion, creativity, and depth.

Not despite their wiring—because of it.

And perhaps that is the invitation here—not to pathologize difference, nor to romanticize struggle, but to notice children more carefully. To listen more curiously. To create environments where they do not have to spend their lives pretending to be less sensitive, less intense, less observant, or less themselves in order to belong.

Because some of the children who experience the world most deeply may also be the ones most capable of helping the rest of us see it more clearly.

They are not broken.

They are not burdens.

They are unique, precious, created by God, and so very loved by Him.

 

Further learning:

— This version of the article does not include the profound and fascinating quotes collected from eleven neurodivergent adult TCKs. You can find the full article here.

— My entire three-part series on TCKs and Neurodiversity (including an interview with Jenilee Goodwin, an extended version of this article, and a videoed collection of personal stories from adult TCKs) is here.  

— Additional reading:

Belonging in Translation — Laura Mannucci
Different, Not Less — Chloé Hayden
Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You — Jenara Nerenberg
Driven to Distraction — Hallowell & Ratey
Embracing the Autism Spectrum — Dr. Stephanie Holmes
Lost in Translation: The Social Language Theory of Neurodivergence — Janae Elisabeth
Neurodiversity for Dummies — John Marble, Khushboo Chabria, and Ranga Jayaraman
Uniquely Human — Barry Prizant
Uniquely Us — Dr. Stephanie Holmes
Unmasking Autism — Devon Price

The Power of Art Processing for TCKs

by Megan C. Norton-Newbanks

I grew up attending international schools: one in South Africa, one in South Korea, two in Germany, one in Japan, and one in Israel. As a U.S. Foreign Service family, we moved to another country every two to three years, and one school elective I always looked forward to was art class. 

Art classes were a safe space for me, and I loved learning about all the techniques and textures I could discover with different mediums. In my final year of high school, I took AP Art, and my capstone theme was “the journey we take.” I explored this theme through the lens of growing up as a Third Culture Kid. I crafted molds of shoes from clay and self-portraits from torn magazine tones. I used recycled materials to showcase movement and change. Most of these creations remain in my parents’ house and remind me of how I’ve continued to create in different ways.

What I have found in working with TCKs across the world is that we gravitate to art to articulate our stories. Various art forms, from visual renderings to photography to poetry, often capture our stories in ways that essays or books cannot fully capture because we are more focused on the process rather than the outcome. Through drawing, painting, and other forms of making, internal experiences become visible and tangible, offering a way to process change and better understand one’s story.

Some of my favorite processing with TCKs is done through inquiry-based art. Instead of asking them to verbalize or write out the cultural influences that have shaped their identity, I provide a blank piece of paper or other art medium where they can express their “many selves.” It can be helpful to provide simple prompts such as, “What might belonging look like as a place?” or “How does home feel?”

In my own experience, engaging with art has provided a way to revisit moments of transition and identity that I did not fully understand at the time. There were feelings I could not name as a child, such as grief over leaving, confusion about belonging, and the tension of holding multiple cultural worlds, and yet when I began to create, those experiences found expression. Understanding often came through the process, not before it. It became less about creating something to show and more about creating in order to discover. 

Sometimes there can be resistance to engaging with art processing. I often hear, “I can’t even draw a stick figure” or “I’m not an artist.” But art expression and processing is more about curiosity than skill. There is no need to share or explain the outcome unless you want to. At the same time, sometimes it can be helpful to reflect afterward with a few gentle questions such as: What stands out to me? What surprised me? What might this be saying about my experience?

There is something universal about art that transcends culture while still honoring individual expression. Jemina Watstein, an art educator, explains in The Belonging Project podcast episode, “How Creative Kids Navigate Life Between Cultures,” that children across the world move through similar stages of artistic development, yet their environments shape how they create and what they express. For globally mobile individuals, this often results in a rich blend of influences that reflect their unique journeys. Activities like blending patterns, symbols, or artistic styles from different cultures can help make this diversity visible.

Within families, art processing can encourage meaningful connection. Simple creative practices, such as collaboratively creating a shared artwork that reflects each person’s experience, can help children process transitions, build emotional awareness, and maintain a sense of belonging even in the midst of change. In these spaces, art becomes more than expression. It becomes a bridge between stories, identities, and relationships.

When I met the very talented artist Simona Wiig, a fellow TCK, we connected over our creative practices. She has done research and held art exhibitions on the interrelationships between belonging, identity, and a multicultural upbringing. Together, we have offered workshops to TCKs to express their stories through various art mediums. We love hearing about how multimedia art inspires TCKs to share their feelings of home and belonging.

Last year, Simona and I released the book A Work of Heart, a collection of over seventy artistic expressions from Third Culture Kids, Cross Cultural Kids, and global nomads. Each piece is paired with personal reflection, forming a powerful mosaic of identities and memories. 

Several families report using this book as a debriefing tool with TCKs and family members by inviting thoughtful reflection in considering questions like:

  • Which art piece resonates with my own story?
  • What memories or personal experiences do these art pieces bring to mind?
  • In what ways might this content be inviting me to view my story differently?

The book ultimately serves as an invitation to think about your story differently: through art. You do not need to be an artist to begin. A simple sketchbook, a favorite pen, or a small creative practice can become a steady companion wherever you are in the world. In the act of making, you find space to process, to connect, and to belong.

Simona and I are already seeking contributions to Volume 2. Please consider submitting your piece here.

~~~~~~~

Megan C. Norton-Newbanks, MA, MS, is an author, CCK/TCK consultant, intercultural trainer, podcaster, and writer. Megan grew up in six countries and has since lived in four more as an ATCK, in addition to six U.S. states. Her book, Belonging Beyond Borders: How Adult Third Culture Kids Can Cultivate a Sense of Belonging, equips and empowers readers to recognize their cultural competencies and apply them in various contexts. Megan also spearheaded the books Letters Now Sent: A Collection of Letters from the Globally Mobile and A Work of Heart: A Collection of Artwork from Multicultural Individuals. In 2022, she launched Beyond Borders Publishing, a platform committed to amplifying cross-cultural voices and stories.

TCKs and the Power of Presence

by Brandon Jones

I’m at a theatre in Brazil with my daughter, Monica, who is just a few months away from finishing high school here in Brazil and moving away to start college in the United States, a country that does not really feel like her home. But, then again, neither does Brazil. At least all the way.

Our afternoon movie was Rental Family, which features a man named Philip who is an American actor that has spent the last seven years in Japan. During that time he’s picked up enough Japanese to get by, booked some gigs, and settled into an apartment from where he can watch so many neighbors. But all the time he’s alone.

For my daughter and me, this movie was quite the experience as we are in our eighth year in Brazil, have picked up enough Portuguese to get by, have settled into an apartment from which we can watch so many neighbors, along with their dogs. But we’re also kind of alone.

In the movie Philip often has conversations that mix English and Japanese as he fits in quite often in spaces and places, but yet he also always stands out. The cross-cultural stuff, however, is in the background of the movie. What stood out more to me was the theme of presence and how as humans we were created to be in the presence of others and gift those others with our own presence. There’s power in our presence, and the business Philip begins to work for, the rent-a-family business, cashes in on this power for better or for worse.

In some ways Philip is perfect for the part. Of course, he’s American, so he’s asked to fit western roles. For seven years he has also been trying to figure out how to be present in another culture that he will never fully understand. But above and beyond every culture is the same, universal human nature that creates it. And above and beyond us humans is the God who created us for presence, no matter how many apartment buildings or norms exist to keep us compartmentalized and apart from one another.

As the movie goes on this theme of presence collides with the question of honesty. Is physical presence all that powerful when it’s based on an act or a lie? Yes and no. The movie does well in letting us see Philip’s journey, introducing us to fascinating characters, and at the end letting us sit with the ambivalence of how presence, honesty, and relationships all intertwine, whether that be in Japan or any other part of the world. 

Sitting there with my daughter, I realized the movie wasn’t just telling a story about Japan or rented relationships, but was gently pressing on something deeper within me.

Rental Family is not a Christian movie, but its characters and themes reinforce the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. There is power in God’s presence with us. And that power would certainly be diminished were it based on some lie, were some of those ancient heresies true after all that Jesus wasn’t really God and really one of us, but some imposter merely playing a role—our Rental Savior.

As cross-cultural missionaries our whole family has dealt with feeling like imposters from time to time. Our passports say one country, and our Portuguese accents confirm it, but our hearts are torn. We may never truly feel what a Brazilian feels, but we’ve lived here long enough to talk like they talk and even think like they think às vezes (sometimes). And while this is true for my wife Marci and me, it’s even more true for Monica and her little sister Olivia, who have spent a majority of their developmental years in Brazil.

Monica is present in this humid, densely populated place, and its emotive people have shaped who she is. But she’ll never be Brazilian, even if her Portuguese accent is better than mine. Yet as she preps to “return” to the States, she doesn’t feel all that American either. Sure, she’ll look and sound the part, but the contours of her character have been permanently pressed by Brazil. 

There’s a phrase for kids like Monica and Olivia: Third Culture Kids (TCKs). In a way they can “mostly belong“ in more than one culture, while not fully belonging in any of them. And so they are really their own third culture that is a mix of the two. Their mom was also a TCK from Kenya whose heart, in her own words, “always beats to the rhythm of an African drum.”

Philip, the movie character, and I are different from them. We grew up in just one culture and were formed by it before moving abroad. He’s from Minnesota, and I’m from Kansas City. Yet, culture has its way of seeping in through the cracks, so even though guys like us take on things from our new culture, it’s different than being formed by it — we can keep things more compartmentalized. 

Toward the end of the movie Philip opens up about his regret in not going back to America for his father’s funeral. He never says why he didn’t go, even after showing up to the airport with his ticket in hand. There’s complexity to such things. His relationship with his father was not great. But there’s also ambivalence about “going home” for guys like Philip and me. There’s familiarity there, sure. But there’s also the heartache of familiar strangeness (or is it strange familiarity?) as well as the difficulty of yet another goodbye. 

As our family looks ahead to prepping Monica and even Olivia for their re-entries to the States, a temptation is to let the laments of future losses pile up and rob us of our full presence here in Brazil. We must guard against it. We must also guard against giving our daughters the message that the culture they are returning to is worse than Brazil or just plain wrong. As we learned before coming to Brazil: cultures are neither right nor wrong, just different. 

Marci and I have hopes and prayers for our daughters as they re-enter that they can come to peace with “mostly belonging” while they are in the States, and, looking back to Brazil, will see their unique journey as a bonus instead of a detriment. 

Monica was recently asked to reflect on her experience as a TCK, including its pros and cons and said this:

Being a TCK is very difficult. No matter where I am, I am missing something from my other world. No matter how much I have in Brazil, I still miss my family in the US, and I still know that I will always be a foreigner in Brazil. I have dealt with jealousy of people who stay in the same place their whole life, but I moved past that, as I would never give up my life for the world. 

Being bilingual is definitely one of my favorite things about being an MK [missionaries’ kid], as I have unlocked a new way of expressing myself. I have also learned valuable lessons about how to lose, grieve, grow, and thrive. I find my experiences of learning how to create my belonging in unfamiliar places very useful. I also like the uniqueness of my story.

Even though people who aren’t TCKs can’t understand me, I still value my unique experiences. To have your own third culture that’s a mix of both worlds is priceless. To mix languages and cultural norms from two distinct places is fun, and it’s a part of me. Looking back at all the hardships, I find what I’ve gained to be more than what I’ve lost.

As our family continues to split further into two hemispheres, the power of physical presence will remain a sore spot in my soul. Like Monica, I too feel that pull of longing to be with family in the States and treasuring my time there. But, at the same time, my home is not there. It’s here in Brazil. And it’s familiarly strange for me to be here, even after seven years. And that’s okay.

Hebrews has long been my favorite biblical book, and even more so since I moved to Brazil. Although there aren’t a lot of people who can understand my daughter or me, Jesus can. And Jesus is enough. I’m thankful for His presence. It’s beyond powerful. And it’s no act or lie. The family of God is not for rent.

~~~~~~~

Brandon Jones grew up in Kansas City, married a missionaries’ kid from Kenya, and with her has raised three children both off and on the mission field. He served as a professor and pastor in the States for several years before becoming an international missionary in Brazil in 2018.

TCKs and the Balancing Act of Achievement

On a Wednesday afternoon we drove into the campsite and settled on a hill overlooking a beautiful river in central Taiwan. The slopes were covered with greenery — trees, bamboo, flowers — and various birdcalls echoed around us. 

Three buses disgorged nearly a hundred grade 12 students from three campuses around the island. I was the guest speaker for their Senior Retreat — a time to consider the big upcoming transition as they prepared to complete high school and (in most cases) begin military service and/or leave the country for university studies.

In my sessions, we discussed practical preparations before leaving, how to process our emotions on either side of the Big Change, even how different it can be to build relationships (and date!) in a new culture. There was one topic which held their attention more than any other. So much eye contact, intensity, and notetaking. And it was first thing on Friday morning, when many of them were tired!

The topic? Failure.

“I Have to be Perfect”

Over the past twenty years of working with TCKs, this topic has come up repeatedly. Fear of failure showed up even among those with parents and teachers who were very loving and supportive, who did not put high expectations on them. 

In conversation and interviews TCKs said, “I have to be perfect!” I would ask them, “Who told you that?” 

In most cases, what followed was several moments of silence, perhaps a cocked head, as they reached through memory and often responded, “Actually, I can’t remember anyone saying that exactly”

In some cases there was a verbally expressed expectation for their behaviour. People knew them, knew their parents, knew about their parents’ work. The way they acted in public reflected on others. It mattered.

In my book Misunderstood I described it this way:

Many TCKs I interviewed felt they had no space to fail, internalising a pressure to live up to the standards of their parents’ occupations. Foreign service and MKs were most likely to make these comments; several had been told outright, often in a serious sit-down talk, that their actions had repercussions for others — reflecting negatively or positively on their parents, their country, or even their God.

Many TCKs, whether this is said directly to them or not, carry a weight of responsibility to be good representatives of their parents’ cause. 

Many MKs feel this both while living abroad, among a people their family desires to witness to, and while visiting their passport country, as they are presented to sponsoring churches — and feel the pressure to perform for the people who pay for their family’s way of life.

In TCK Training’s 2024 survey of over 1,000 missionary kids,

  • 54% of missionary kids felt “pressure to be perfect” while living abroad
  • 69% of missionary kids felt “pressure to perform” while visiting their passport country

Warped Sense of Normal

The other big issue is that most TCKs grow up with a warped sense of normal. That is, they compare themselves to elite achievement — then decide they must be failing, or at least falling behind. 

80% of MKs grew up with at least one parent who held an advanced degree. Compare that to how many adults in the world hold any degree at all! (That’s about 20-30% in the Western world.)

About 95% of TCKs take at least some university classes. The highest numbers I could find worldwide for university entrance were in the USA, pre-covid, where 60% of high school graduates did at least some university study. And that’s just those who completed high school. It doesn’t count those who previously dropped out.

I’ve been to many international school graduations, and typically about one third of students have a cord/sash or other indicator to publicly display that they attained a straight A average. 

None of this is ‘normal’ anywhere in the world. But this is the ‘normal’ our MKs grow up with. This is the set of expectations they assume they must live up to. When they excel, they see that as expected — not something to celebrate.

Instead of celebrating their successes, many TCKs instead breathe a sigh of relief. They didn’t fail. This time. But soon enough, there’s another potential future failure to fear. 

Lessons about Failure

All this explains why, on that warm pre-storm morning in central Taiwan, nearly one hundred students watched me intently as I began to explain that the way so many of them felt inside — that pressure to excel, that fear of failure — was a common experience. That it was not a personal failing. And most important, that there was a way through it.

I shared two important lessons with them.

1) Failure is a stepping stone to success.

Ask anyone who has succeeded in their field, and they’ll tell you about the litany of failures on the way to their eventual success. No one gets it right the first time. And even if they did, that’s not how you learn. We learn far more from failure than we do from success.

Perhaps this seems obvious to you. But I guarantee, for most young TCKs this concept is a revelation!

2) Failure shows you who cares.

So many TCKs spend their lives trying to be good enough, trying to live up to something, with the unspoken belief that when they get it wrong, relationship will be negatively impacted.

And so I tell them. It is when we fail, when we get things wrong, when we show our human weakness — those are the times we see the depth of genuine relationship in our lives. That’s when we see who loves us for who we are, not for our performance. 

How Can Adults Help?

TCKs need to hear us talk about our mistakes, our failures, and our weaknesses. They need to know that we don’t have it all together — and that we never did.

They need models of getting it wrong, picking yourself up and trying again, and learning through the process. They need to know that they are loved and cared for even when everything goes wrong. We can’t assume they know these things. We need to say it out loud. 

We need to say, “You are more important to me than your grades.” 

We need to say, “I’ve failed so many times. It’s hard, but I got through it.”

We need to say, “I’m not perfect, and I don’t expect you to be.”

Many of the solutions I propose in this article seem simple, especially considering the magnitude of the problem. But that’s the point! There are lots of little things we can do that make a big difference for the TCKs in our lives. And now that we know how much these things matter, it’s time to start being intentional about doing them.

Making Growing Up Global Wildly, Outrageously Worth It

She bounded over the dirt hill, her pink shirt clashing gloriously against a red-and-green skirt, blonde ponytail bouncing, dishes allegedly done.

I was eight years old, American, and a rule-follower to my bones. Tirza was Swiss with a hint of spirited spice, and she had just put all the dirty dishes in the oven so she could join me to build a palm frond fort.

When she told me what she’d done, with nonchalance to boot, I could hardly believe my ears, and I lost all composure.

That was the beginning of one of the most formative friendships of my childhood in Cameroon. Tirza became my best friend, but she was also instrumental in unleashing my courage. 

With her at my side, I ventured into parts of Cameroon I never would have explored alone — buying beignets in broken French, taking a canoe downriver for a midmorning picnic, and saying yes to adventures that felt risky enough to be thrilling and just a little bit dangerous. She turned, “But what if I get hurt?” into “Let’s give it a go!”

She connected me to the country in ways a classroom never could have. I grew insatiably curious about Cameroon and whatever adventure lay around the corner. 

I didn’t understand the lasting significance as a child, but Tirza gave me what researchers now call one of the most powerful gifts a child can receive: a friend who helps you feel known, seen, and brave enough to explore an untamed world that’s begging to be discovered.

Growing up global can be outrageously scrumptious. Cross-cultural friendships, markets bartered in, metros taken solo, languages lived rather than memorized, and faith that expands beyond a monocultural lens. There is something deeply formative that happens when a child grows up, leaving no stone unturned in our big, blue world. I want to say that clearly before I say anything else, because what follows is in service of protecting something worth protecting.

What Tirza gave me had a name, it turned out. It was one of seven Positive Childhood Experiences, or anchors that researchers now know dramatically shape a child’s long-term outcomes. They all boil down to connection. Connection in the family and connection in the community. For TCKs, even when all three PCEs related to the home are perfectly intact, the four rooted in community disappear with every move. 

When I learned about these PCEs, I knew everyone touching global life needed to understand this — parents, teachers, grandparents, sending organizations — because every one of them can become an anchor for TCKs no matter where they are in the world.

In 2021, TCK Training published research that woke up the expat community. In a survey of nearly 2,000 TCKs, research director Tanya Crossman found that the international life we love and believe in also correlated with higher rates of childhood trauma. In the general population, a little over one in ten children scored in the high-risk range for Adverse Childhood Experiences in the U.S. For missionary kids, that number climbed to nearly one in five. In the business expat sector, nearly one in three.

Does that mean growing up global is bad for kids? Well no, because we also learned something else. 71% of TCKs say global life is the best way to grow up, and 90% say their childhood was overall good. Global life is good. But something does need to change. 

Positive Childhood Experiences are the very factors that mitigate those risks. TCKs with all seven were 63% less likely to be diagnosed with anxiety, 86% less likely to develop PTSD, and 2.2 times more likely to be proud of their parents’ work abroad. These kids weren’t just treading water with global life. They were proud of it. The anchors work — but only when they’re attached to the boat needing them. 

The stats made sense. I knew the world needed to hear it because the adult TCKs I spoke with and the families I debriefed were all saying the same thing, “This stuff makes a difference, I wish I would have known this sooner.”

The stats needed flesh. The research needed to become personal and usable. But beyond that, I wanted parents to know more than risk mitigation. They needed to know just how incredible a global childhood can be and why. Nourished is what came from that need. It’s where research, story, empathy, and actionable steps meet in a user-friendly way for parents and caregivers who are already giving their all and who need someone who understands their story and what’s getting in the way.

When I started writing Nourished, I had no idea the magnitude of the task I was taking on. I was determined that four questions needed clear answers for each PCE, and anything short of that depth would fall short. For each one we needed to know: Why does it matter? What happens in adulthood for kids who don’t get it? What unique challenges do parents abroad face in providing it? And how do we actually provide it?

The rigorous research alone took an immense amount of time, and the pages kept filling up. I quickly realized that the faith-based integrations I cared deeply about were not going to be done justice if I tried to cram them into this book, so I developed a companion Biblical Study Guide, specifically for faith-based families.

Nourished isn’t a magic bullet for raising a family overseas. But it does provide language for why your gut might feel like something needs to change—and exactly what pivots might help. Or why your child does so well in one place and not in another. Or why two children growing up in the same home may have such different experiences and how to better support the gaps.

What I keep hearing from readers is, “I feel seen” and “This isn’t just for TCKs. All kids need this.” Which takes me back to something I wrote on page 54:

The public high school teacher in me wants to shout from the mountaintops that PCEs are crucial for all children. Whether you work with TCKs or monocultural kids, you’re changing outcomes for the kids in your care. But TCKs face unique vulnerabilities that make supportive relationships even more critical. We’re not just trying to avoid adverse outcomes. We want to actively unleash the beautiful potential that comes from growing up global.

At nineteen, newly repatriated from my childhood in Cameroon, I walked across a Midwest university campus drowning in a sea of people who looked exactly like me, but had no idea who I was. I started making choices that confused even me. I hadn’t lost my faith. I hadn’t turned into someone unrecognizable for no reason. I had simply lost too many anchors. And without them, even the most resilient, faith-filled child may drift in the storm.

I know now why having Tirza was a much bigger part of God’s plan for childhood than someone to build forts with. So was our English teacher, Ms. Baker, who made cookies for us after soccer practice, the annual missionary game nights, and the jungle that left its untamable imprint on my heart. These were the parts of belonging to a global village that God meant to work together for my good and His glory. TCKs feel it deeply when any of these pieces are missing. And when they’re present, so many TCKs grow to develop the exact strengths we crave to see in the world. 

In your world right now, there is a TCK with the potential for exactly what Tirza gave me — a friendship that flings the door open to exploration, a knowledge that the world is huge and also within reach, and a global childhood that makes them ferociously alive. And friendship is only one of seven key anchors. Nourished is your guide to all of them, and to building the kind of village that makes a global childhood wildly, outrageously worth it.

Access Nourished here.

Access the companion Biblical study guide here.

If at All Possible, Take Them Home

The tears started when we got out of the tuk tuk and stood at the edge of our old neighborhood. My teen girls wanted to meander from the main road, down the hill, around the corner. They wanted to walk slowly home, taking it all in and letting the memories come as they may.

We were five years late, but we had come home.

Our furlough was supposed to last from April to August of 2020. As the world began to shut down, we talked with our medical advisors and bumped our flights up to mid-March; we packed our suitcases, wore our masks, hoped all six of us would remain fever free, and boarded our flights from Phnom Penh to Taipei to San Francisco to Kansas City. The flight board in Taipei was nearly all red, full of cancelled flights. Thankfully, TPE to SFO was on time.

We didn’t know it then, but this was how we were wrapping up eight years of life and living in Asia.

About a month into our time in the States we realized the doors were closing on Cambodia. We cried, we planned, we wept. We ate a lot of ice cream.

And we did our best to end well during a global pandemic and without the chance to say goodbye in person. Our kids kept meeting with their international youth group virtually, we used Google maps to “walk” down our streets, we tried to do what we could while also figuring out how to survive in the vastly altered America we had just landed in.

***

But now, five years later, I saw my girls enthralled with the country of their youth. They were coming back to their childhood, and they were loving it. During the late-night taxi drive from the airport, they rolled down the windows and said it felt like they never left. The sharp smells, the weight of the air, the Khmer throngs, the Chinese neon blinking signs.

We went to the Japanese mall where our family spent many Saturdays, we walked through the Russian Market and bought trinkets and shirts. Some of our favorite restaurants had had to shut down during the pandemic, but some made it through, so we ate and ate and ate. We were tourists who didn’t feel like tourists.

We went to our old church, a place where we all experienced the beauty and complexity of the global, international Kingdom. We were the last ones there that Sunday, walking around the church compound, remembering hot Sundays playing in the grass and eating samosas from our Pakistani friends.

My girls loved hearing Khmer again and feeling the humidity and swimming late into the night. They loved the French pastries, leftovers from a not-too-distant colonial time. They said the visit changed their memories of Cambodia, that when they thought back of Cambodia now, it wouldn’t be all loss and empty space and a shapeless goodbye. Their memories would now include long walks with teenage eyes, good hugs, the beauty of long friendships across oceans, and laughter at how our 7th floor hotel room flooded because the bidet exploded while we were touring the Royal Palace.

***

When we walked down the hill and turned the dusty corner of our street, we were known. Our old neighbors, cooking and chattering away outside their houses, saw us from several blocks away and started waving their hands wildly. They welcomed us back so sweetly and with such smiles; I will cherish their gift for a lifetime. They asked about the family, about America, about work. They showed us how five years had grown their children too. We visited with our old landlord, who surprised us with an invitation to walk through our old row house.

We climbed the stairs, peered into the old spaces where we lived. The girls saw some of their old furniture, repurposed now by a Cambodian family. They went out on the little patio, my youngest’s first “garden,” the place where she first tended to living things. What a beautiful, unexpected, wonderful gift.

The trip was so much better than I had even hoped. I knew I wanted to get them there; for five years I had known that somehow, someway, I needed to get them there. And I am so grateful.

***

We stood at the Phnom Penh airport, departure tickets in hand, and breathed. The girls wanted to recreate the last photo we took in Cambodia in 2020: at the top of the escalators, just before immigration, looking down on the airline check-in counters. Arched ceilings framed reliefs of Cambodian scenes. The girls are much taller in these new photos, and their smiles are older too.

We were all sad again, a little bit. And we were happy too. This time, we were leaving a Cambodia that had been home, that still felt like home in many ways, and we were also going home. Soon, we knew we would land at a little airport in Southwest Missouri that would also feel familiar. We would greet the rest of the family and tell all the stories. We would go to church on Sunday, a place with dear friends and kind hearts where we, once again, feel known and cared for and seen. The global church, it turns out, is in Missouri too, with all her beauty and complexity.

We would recover from jet lag in our own beds, and we would sit around our own table once again and laugh and laugh. There aren’t palm trees outside, and we can’t usually smell our neighbor’s dinner. The air isn’t thick year-round with humidity and incense, and there are no geckos. But we can walk down our not-so-dusty street. We can fall in love with the four seasons of an American Midwest. We can drive to our new favorite Asian restaurant. We can still live.

Because, wonder of wonders, after traveling there and back again, we have come

Home.

It is not always possible to return to a once-loved place. For ideas on what to do when you can’t go back, check out The Day We Didn’t Go Home. Also, if you’re not familiar with TCK Training and all their excellent resources, visit their website at tcktraining.com. Marilyn Gardner has written a beautiful piece for adult third culture kids on returning home: So, You Want to Go Back ‘Home’?

I asked a lot of questions during our trip: Has anything surprised you? What is this like for you? Is there anything left undone? What are the things you really need to do here or the places you really need to go? I didn’t really have much of an agenda at all, and I didn’t really try to anticipate what they would want or how they would feel.

After the trip, I asked one of my daughters for her advice to families making a return trip. “Let the feelings feel,” she said. “Let it be happy if it’s happy, and let it be sad if it’s sad. And if the feeling’s anger or frustration, let that be too.”

Do Your Kids Like It?

by Abi Little

Here is a tricky question to answer: ‘Do your kids like living in Cambodia?’

I was asked this question so many times last year when we were in the UK. It is such an important question but not one that is easy to answer.

It’s hard to explain the nature of moving your kids to another nation yet knowing they are likely to go back to nation number one eventually. Once you choose one transition, you inevitably choose many more. Domino effect.

The first thing I always say is that both of our kids would answer this question differently. The youngest came here when she had just turned five. Many of the ways she analyses and interacts with the world is very Cambodian in style. She knows to be respectful of older people, but she plays out with the local kids every day, speaking pigeon Khmer whilst using anything they can find to create elaborate and messy games. She has an accent which isn’t European or Asian but isn’t British either. 

And when we were in the UK, we joked that she was like a foreigner in a new land. She made comments like ‘I didn’t know there were fat brown cows in England’ and ‘Superdrug? What on earth do they sell in there? Drugs?’ My favourite statement was: ‘I don’t like trains. I always feel they are going to go without me. The tuk tuks wait for us!’

Does our youngest daughter like Cambodia? Yes, very much because she was young enough when we arrived to adjust quickly. Does she like England? Yes, very much so. But when we visit, we only do nice things. What would she make of ‘real’ life?’ What will she feel when she eventually returns? She will probably find it a huge adjustment. As will we.

How about our older daughter? She had just turned eight when we arrived and was very much attached to her life in the UK. She loved her school and her friends, our church, and, of course, family. She was always able to maturely articulate the loss she felt when we moved. But still, she got on with life in Phnom Penh. She made beautiful friends, but then those friends left. (People come and go so often here.) Then we moved again. I know I felt huge amounts of guilt for this. But she has grown into such a dynamic, funny, hardworking, kind and interesting human. 

About eighteen months ago, she told me she finally felt that God had a purpose for her in Cambodia too, not just for us, and that she was glad we had come here. 

She has beautiful friends, she loves church, and she has had amazing opportunities. But her heart is still divided. However, even at almost fourteen years old she can now, not only articulate well what she has lost, but can also recognise all that she has gained. 

Our children are and will always be TCKs. Third Culture Kids. They no longer inhabit their first culture, and they don’t entirely own their second one. They will always be shaped by both and identify in different ways with each. That’s not easy. 

Children face change even if they stay in one place. But we recognise that the change we effectively caused them to go through was huge and will impact their futures. For the good, yes, and also for the heartache that will inevitably come—for there will be loss again. That is hard to live with as a parent. But that doesn’t mean we made the wrong decision. It’s way more complex than that. 

My husband Sam and I agreed we would always be understanding, kind, and loving when they expressed their feelings about this move or the next. That their feelings (even if they felt/feel upset with us) are fair and valid. 

So, do our children like Cambodia? Yes, very much. Is it easy to be a TCK? No, it has its challenges. Are there rewards? Absolutely! 

But is it easy to handle change? For most, no. But aren’t there amazing and exciting and wonderful things to be learned when we go on an adventure such as this? To be surrounded by people who teach us new ways, new perspectives, new values? What a blessing. 

Our kids are TCKs. Our kids are our kids (and in many ways they are like us). Our kids are robust because of their varied and unusual experiences. And our prayer is that God will use it all for good. 

Do our children like Cambodia? Yes! Do they like England? Yes! Are they glad they are TCKs? Yes and no. What does this make us as parents? Well, as Christian parents we trust that God has a plan for their lives and He will guide their paths, and we hope to help with that. 

So do our kids like Cambodia? Yes! And . . .

~~~~~~~

Abi and her husband, originally from the UK, have lived in Siem Reap, Cambodia, with their two children for six years. Three years ago, they founded Grace Church Siem Reap, a bilingual, multicultural church. Abi also established Devoted to Cambodia two years ago, a charity offering free English lessons to children living near the provincial dump. By improving their English, students gain access to safer, better-paid jobs in Siem Reap’s tourism industry, helping families break the cycle of poverty (See Littles in Cambodia on Facebook).   

Could God Be Preparing TCKs to Meet the Deepest Needs of This Generation?

Motherhood photo by Mukil Menon.

Growing up overseas offers children an incredible opportunity to develop a global perspective based on the lived experiences of forming personal connections across cultures. I’ve certainly seen that unfold from my own childhood, and in my work as an expat consultant, I’m watching the next generation carry forward a global mindset that is making an exceptional impact on relationships, identities, and a strong witness for Christ. But this doesn’t happen by accident. 

My own story began as an American child living in Cameroon, where my parents served as Wycliffe Bible translators. Our missionary life started the day our ivory family of six spilled out of our Nissan truck and into the lives of an ebony clan who would become family, changing me forever. Two decades earlier, an elder of their village had written a plea to Wycliffe for a Bible translation in his language. He unknowingly forged the path that would make me a Third Culture Kid — someone who spent a significant amount of their childhood years abroad. 

Growing up in Cameroon shaped me profoundly. It made other people’s experiences anything but distant. News of war in Africa wasn’t a faceless story. I shared life with people who were killed or displaced in Cameroon’s Anglophone Crisis. My husband is a TCK whose family lived through not one, not two, but several evacuations from war-torn countries. The people who experienced days without potable water, dehydration, hushing their babies while hiding in the bush, homemade bombs going off at social gatherings, retribution for speaking out, the terrible silence of ghost towns, and the wailing of women were not nameless people in a news article to me. 

A childhood spent with these people also made their joys anything but distant. The children they birthed were babies I carried on my back and celebrated when they brought home their first report cards. Witnessing the people of my childhood hold the Word of God in their own language for the first time wasn’t just a media post I swiped past. It was sacred and deeply moving — the culmination of sharing 20 years of my family’s life with a community that fed me beans from the same bowls as their children, taught me their songs and stories around kitchen fires, boiled herbal medicine when I was sick, and cried shouts of joy when they hugged me home from boarding school. They were worth sacrificing for, and they felt the same way about us.

Growing up between worlds gives children the chance to experience the love, joy, loss, pain, and victory of our global neighbors in a deeply personal way — one that often moves them to action later as adults. Often unaware of their own strengths, Adult TCKs tend to be highly sought after in today’s job market due to essential skills that were developed as a result of their globally-mobile childhood. 

According to wealth management companies Creative Planning International and Sable International, ATCK skills include compassion, empathy, adaptability, open-mindedness, independence, resilience, problem-solving, and the ability to consider multiple perspectives.1 These qualities are increasingly rare and extremely attractive in a Western backdrop marked by divisiveness, screen saturation, and overstimulation. This growing recognition is fueling the rise of world schoolers, families who choose to work remotely to provide real-world, cross-cultural experiences as the foundation for their children’s education.

Globally raised children are poised to make a significant impact on the next generation on a spiritual level too. Their experiences abroad foster carefully curated skills that will directly address the projected societal deficiencies of Gen Alpha. Experts predict that Gen Alpha will face psychological challenges from digital lives, including unsustainable pace, relentless change, lack of genuine connection, lack of face-to-face contact, risk-aversion, real-world interaction deficiencies, fragmented attention, and more.2 Additional challenges include social fragmentation, polarization, and difficulty forming meaningful relationships. We already see warning signs of this in Gen Z.

God’s heart for all people compels us to prepare ourselves and our kids with the tools necessary to minister to each generation’s unique challenges. 1 Timothy 2:3-4 reminds us of the breadth of God’s heart: “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”3 So, how will we reach them?

I believe today’s TCKs are uniquely positioned to minister to Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s challenges with a clarity of the gospel that is a direct result of their global upbringing. TCK Training’s 2024 survey of 1,643 adult TCKs representing 92 nationalities uncovered exciting information about the third culture kid experience.4 Their strengths align remarkably well with the skills needed to meet future challenges:

  • 93% of adult TCKs report having a broad worldview — a crucial skill in addressing complex spiritual questions in an information-saturated generation.
  • 83% see themselves as bridges between cultures — a critical capability in holding the core truth of scripture in tension with an increasingly polarized culture.
  • 83% report compassion as a strength — a necessary trait as Gen Alpha is projected to be more deficient in meaningful face-to-face contact than previous generations.
  • 82% report adaptability — an essential skill as Gen Z and Gen Alpha face complex issues with unprecedented access to information.
  • 78% report open-mindedness — an important tool in an increasingly globalized world. 

When I consider the reported strengths of TCKs, I can’t help but wonder if God is purposefully building Gen Z and Gen Alpha TCKs to minister to the wounds of their own generation. Is it possible that God will use their upbringing between cultures to bridge the gap and equip them with a profound clarity of the lived gospel? Might this powerfully shake the world and bring healing to our spiritual sickness? 

But here’s the caveat. This only holds true when it’s done well. 

Over the last few generations, the international community has learned painful lessons about the importance of intentional parenting in the expat context. We would do well to learn from what works and what doesn’t in raising kids abroad. While the TCK experience offers a valuable and rich foundation, mishandling it can lead to grave repercussions. TCKs are at higher risk for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) than other populations, which can result in long-term physical and mental health complications when left unattended.5 

Does this mean parents should avoid raising children abroad? Absolutely not. 

Consider this analogy: I’m at risk for plantar fasciitis. Should I avoid walking, hiking, or running? Recent studies show that a sedentary lifestyle is as harmful to my health as smoking and diabetes. In fact, not exercising was found to increase risk of death by 500%.6 Avoiding exercise is not the answer to my fullest and healthiest life. Instead, I researched triggers and mitigating factors and pursued an active lifestyle while investing in supportive shoes, stretching, and taking breaks when I detected pain.

In the same way, parents can raise TCKs while addressing specific risks and implementing mitigating factors. Due to mobility, the number one risk factor for TCKs is loss of connection—with primary caregivers and with community. Stress for parents, frequent moves, and the loss of familiar environments all heighten this risk.

This is where the power of TCK-informed parenting comes in. If loss of connection is the primary risk factor for TCKs, what would happen if TCK connection were centralized in the expat community? 

In 2019, Dr. Christina Bethell conducted a study of 6,188 people at John Hopkins to determine which childhood factors built resilience instead of fragility in adult mental health.7 She found that even children who had experienced mild to severe trauma in childhood went on to have greater resilience and better mental and emotional health in adulthood if they also had positive connections with primary caregivers, peers, and the community.8 The study further showed that Positive Childhood Experiences, or PCEs, had a cumulative effect in that the more PCEs a child had, the greater their health in adulthood.

This study’s impact on preventive care science leaves us with hope that increasing access to PCEs may alter the trajectory of children at risk for trauma and higher ACE scores. It further explains the significant and lasting difference that caregivers and the community make in raising a healthy generation.

The eight PCEs are:

  1. The ability to talk with family about feelings.
  2. The sense that family is supportive during difficult times.
  3. Feeling safe and protected by an adult in the home.
  4. Feeling supported by friends.
  5. Feeling a sense of belonging in high school.
  6. Participating in community traditions.
  7. Having at least two non-parent adults who genuinely cared (Pinetree Institute).
  8. Belonging to a multi-generational group. 

Each of the PCEs center on connection, starting with the primary caregiver and then extending to the wider community. Children who consistently had 6-7 PCEs were 72% less likely to develop mental illness in adulthood. Those who had 3-5 were 50% less likely to develop depression and poor mental health.9 Everyone plays a stewardship role in building vibrant childhoods — from parents, to peers, and the wider community. 

Many of us in the expat community are painfully aware of crash-and-burn stories of TCKs whose needs were put on the backburner in a passionate pursuit of global work. Even armed with these insights as a TCK mom, I was not immune to my own blindspots and moments of disconnection. However, as an expat family instructor, I am deeply encouraged by today’s TCK parents and their strong commitment to centralize the needs of the family as a launching point for effective ministry, not a secondary consideration.

It is true that TCKs are at higher risk than other populations for a high ACE score largely due to mobility and loss of connection. Yet the good news is clear: Positive Childhood Experiences grounded in meaningful relationships have a protective and lasting effect. Even in the face of adversity, children who experience strong family bonds, supportive friendships, and a sense of belonging are significantly more resilient and healthy.

As an expat parent, it is within your hands to nurture your child’s potential to become spiritually whole themselves before becoming a globally aware citizen who brings God’s healing touch to their generation. It starts with TCK-informed parenting — knowing the risks, focusing on connection, and raising spiritually and emotionally vibrant children. The stakes are too high to remain uninformed.

If you would like to know where to start, here are resources I recommend.

Footnotes
1 Sengelmann, Peter. Benefits of Living Overseas with Children. Creative Planning International. (September 23, 2024). Accessed 01/29/2025; Shrosbree, Leanne. 10 reasons growing up abroad gives your children a head start in life. Sable International. (June 6, 2019). Accessed 01/29/2025.
2 Nellis, Joe. What does the future hold for Gen Alpha? Cranfield Executive Development. Accessed 01/28/2025; Haidt, Jonathan. End the Phone-Based Childhood Now. The Atlantic. (March 13, 2024). Accessed 01/29/2025.
3 English Standard Version Bible. Bible Gateway. Accessed 02/08/2025.
4 Crossman, T., Wells, L., Vahey Smith, E., & Kanabar, S. (2025, January 20). First Look: Data from the 2024 Survey on the Impact of Childhood Global Mobility on Adult Wellness, 52. Retrieved from https://www.tcktraining.com/research/first-look-data-from-the-2024-survey
5 Ibid., 9.
6 Mandal, Anaya. Not exercising is worse than smoking, diabetes or heart disease finds study. News Medical Life Sciences. (October 21, 2018). Accessed 01/28/2025.
7 Bethell C, Jones J, Gombojav N, Linkenbach J, Sege R. Positive Childhood Experiences and Adult Mental and Relational Health in a Statewide Sample: Associations Across Adverse Childhood Experiences Levels. JAMA Pediatr. (2019):e193007. Accessed 02/01/2025.
8  Pinetree Institute. Positive Childhood Experiences (PCES). Accessed 02/01/2025.
9 Bethell C, Jones J, Gombojav N, Linkenbach J, Sege R. Positive Childhood Experiences. JAMA Pediatr. (2019):e193007. Accessed 02/01/2025.

 

This article expands on data shared in “Key Takeaways for TCKs” in Mission Frontiers, May/June 2025.

Photo by Mukil Menon, Unsplash.

Co-Grieving Loss with Your Repatriated TCK

We didn’t have words for TCK loss back then. Not when I left Cameroon at nineteen and stepped onto U.S. soil as a stranger to my own country. But just because there weren’t words doesn’t mean the ache of loss didn’t burrow deep. Nineteen and newly repatriated felt like drowning in a sea of people who looked like me and talked like me but didn’t know the red-earth-Africa that shaped me. 

I hardly recognized the girl I became in the wake of losing Cameroon, my best friends, and everything that felt familiar. That season was one of the hardest – and one of the unhealthiest – of my life.

Now, after the years have fast forwarded to an empty nest, I find myself looking back, not just at my own story but at theirs. I think of my children, my third culture kids, who built rich and beautiful lives on South African soil, their home. How will they handle letting go? How will they carry the weight of leaving behind the people and places that shaped them?

When I saw Megan Norton’s invitation to write a letter to my recently repatriated TCKs for her upcoming book, Letters Now Sent, I knew exactly what I wanted to say. I know the grief of leaving a place that tattoos an indelible mark on your soul. As their mother and as a TCK myself, I want to co-grieve their losses of saying goodbye to a life they loved in South Africa. And I know where I want them to root themselves now, as they step into adulthood in the U.S.

This letter is a new beginning with new language for parents of TCKs. It is my way of opening the door to a safe and sacred conversation with my young adult children—one established in love, shared understanding, and the kind of hope that reroots through the cracks of even the hardest losses. While their reactions to my letter are deeply personal and honey to my heart, I can tell you that this budding conversation was met with warm reciprocity and open arms. 

A letter to Elaina and Sawyer Danforth, 2025 (republished at A Life Overseas with permission) 

My two dearest toasted marshmallows,

You are eighteen and nineteen now. University carries a steep learning curve for everyone, but especially for the ones like you who left home, country, and friends to be grafted back to the place of your heritage. 

As second-generation TCKs, you belong to a tribe that your father and I know well. Your childhood was formed in the womb of the cradle of humankind, in KwaZulu-Natal, and it ended abruptly on the other side of a plane ride to the United States. But the things that formed you there still sing in every crevice of your mind and shape the way you see the world. 

Repatriation is a season when the losses of the familiar sink in hard for TCKs. And these are the years when you become aware of your roots, the ones that have been transplanted to new soils and now feel wildly distinct and out of place. The places of your childhood are the places where your formative and deepest roots grow. And the soil of South Africa no longer surrounds or supports you. 

You’ll remember from working on our farm that a transplanted plant often wilts for a while. It is learning to survive in a new and unfamiliar environment. Its roots aren’t sure what to make of its new home. They don’t know whether they can unfurl and take new life or whether the newness will be hostile to growth. Repatriating TCKs are the same. 

While my roots in South Africa will never be as deeply formative as yours, I am here to co-grieve your losses with you. I did the same as a nineteen-year-old with my Cameroonian roots. And your father did too, at eighteen with his Congolese and Central African roots. 

Some losses are obvious. Our imperfectly perfect little farmhouse and the stability of its cracked walls. The foamy blueness of whales flirting between the horizon and the Indian Ocean. The oneness of our multicultural, multi-lingual farm family. The wind-whipped cheeks from four-wheeling wild past giraffes. The saggy eyes after Minecraft all-nighters with friends. The laughter with your non-blood sisters farmsteading in the mountains. The crispy-edged pancakes hot off the griddle every Saturday morning. The seasonal ebb and flow of subtropical downpours and droughts. 

But some losses are hidden. Some, you won’t even know you miss until you come across them years later. And you’ll be caught off guard by a sudden feeling of home. Hidden losses are the sounds, smells, and invisible things that God sprinkled into the backdrop of your childhood. They are the things that you didn’t even know weren’t everywhere on planet earth. Until they weren’t. 

Your hidden losses don’t have to make sense to anyone else. They don’t even have to be pleasant. But something about these background sounds and smells had a profound impact on developing the unseen part of who you are today. And we honor those gifts by naming them. 

The background sound of your childhood is the cry of hadedas filling pink southern skies and beckoning your sleepy eyes open. You didn’t even know the sound was missing until that first morning in a Midwest dormroom when the synthetic shock of an alarm clock demanded your attention. 

It is the faithful singsong Xhosa greeting “Molweni” on your proud farm stoep. It is the mourning doves telling each other off gently and sternly. It is the inexplicable peace of violent rains threatening to crash right through tôle roofs. It is the baying of hounds, whether to threaten skelems or to give chase to dassies, outside your burglar-barred window. 

It is the South African flavor in which people have always said your name. It is the twisted, segregated history healing in real time through the harmony of church songs in English, Afrikaans, and Zulu. It is the comfort of our family’s age-old call to meals that reaches back to the recesses of your first independently held spoon, “On va prier.”

The background smell embedded in the roots of your childhood is a eucalyptus flame licking Karoo lamb ribs on the braai. It is soft buttermilk vanilla steam from an Ouma rusk dunked in Five Roses tea. How can something be so moorishly crunchy and goopy at the same time? It is the barely-there salt in the air where the Indian Ocean laps at the sky. And yes, it is even the familiar sewage plant every time we try to hold our breath at that bend in the highway by Uvongo.

Your roots will fumble around in this new place of red, white, and blue for a while, figuring out what is friendly soil and what isn’t. And this is the time. Dit is tyd to close your eyes, take a breath, and rediscover the power of your one unshakable tap root. It is your deepest root. The most formative one. The most familiar one. The most stabilizing one. It is your one root that pushes far past all the others, past every good and rocky soil, reaching like life depends on it, to the source of life. Water. Living Water. 

It is in Living Water that you’ve always found life and truth and all that is good. When everything around is unfamiliar, this source is the familiar. 

You’ll find community in the taproots of familiar people planted there too. And you’ll come to know new people who are automatically family because their taproot seeks life in the same place where yours does. This is the good stuff, my toasted marshmallows. 

While your secondary roots stumble around and try to make sense of star-spangled life, sink all your energy, all your questions, all your everything into your taproot’s source of life. It is the one and only thing that will never change no matter where you go, how far you fall, or how unfamiliar everything else seems. 

Taprooted to the Source with you,

Mom (Anna Danforth)

~~~~~~~

Inspired by Ruth Van Reken‘s book Letters Never Sent, Letters Now Sent will be a collection of letters from TCKs, parents of TCKs, and system leaders to share personal stories about their experiences with TCKs, being a TCK themself, and/or raising TCKs. This book is a fusion of both memoir and anthology written in a specific “Dear [name]” format. 

Here is the Google Form link to submit a letter with additional details about length and content prompts: https://forms.gle/jQyzq3TtFqfyznvCA. The deadline to submit a letter is March 31, 2025, and the book will be launched in July 2025 at Ruth’s 80th birthday celebration. Families in Global Transition is hosting the 80th Birthday party in Chicago on July 26, 2027, and registration will be live on their website soon. You do not have to be a member of FIGT to register for this event.

The Future and Beyond! Preparing TCKs for College

by Kristi Steele

For most high schoolers, the “college” conversation doesn’t really begin until junior year or later. The situation isn’t that straightforward for families living outside their passport country. But matter where you live, there are great ways to prepare and maximize your conversations about the “after high school” options.

This matters deeply to me after growing up overseas as an MK with limited funds and maybe one college visit. My schooling was as varied as the many houses we lived in. I scoured scholarship applications, went to college, graduated, and worked in an international fair-trade business until I was hired as a college recruiter for international students and TCKs. In the almost five years I recruited students, I observed two things:

  1. Students who live outside the US are interested in what is next after high school, but they have limited opportunities to connect with resources, options, and experts. Understanding the collegiate search and admission process is hard no matter where you live, but it’s especially difficult when you live abroad.
  2. Opportunities to hear from universities and connect with them were few and far between.

After several years of students contacting me in the spring of their senior year, only to learn most of the scholarship money had been dispersed by then (and the conversation ending in tears), I stopped recruiting and started my own business (KC360.co). My goal and passion melded into one: helping and resourcing TCKs and international students to meet the needs I had observed. I believed we could improve the process for international families and perhaps mitigate a few of those tears.

But let me first say that college isn’t for everyone, and that is ok. We need everyone to walk the road they are uniquely created for because we want all of you in the places that bring you joy and connection. College is one avenue to those roads, but there are others too. So where you do begin?

For families of freshman and sophomores, the majority of your involvement in any college, gap year, trade school, or apprenticeship conversations should be just that: conversations. If you are near a university that is within your family, community, or support system, sign up for a college visit! It is great for students and families to visit a campus (not just drive through it), visit a class, eat in the cafeteria, and hear from admission professionals.

If you normally live abroad and are back in the US, take some time to give this experience to your student. (Feel free to visit universities abroad as well!) College visits are free and help students “feel” some of the nuances they may not know answers to – things like big campus or little campus, walkable or drivable, urban or smaller town, etc.

When families reach junior and senior year, there are some sizable shifts for students to prepare for college. We have an amazing task as parents to help prepare our students for adulthood by helping them slowly ease into this arena within the safety of our homes. Basic goals such as laundry, cooking a favorite meal or two, understanding a budget (how much money it takes for me to be my best self), are all important. Go a little farther if you can, and help them understand time management and goals.

These years are when conversations about college should turn into a bit of action: reflecting on whether college is for you, the types of majors and careers which may suit you, the financial picture of what it will look like for yourself and your family, and more.

Whether you are homeschooled, public schooled, private schooled, or a mixture of these, college search and admission can feel like a lot when you are overseas. Helping students navigate the process is what I have loved doing for almost a decade, and it is a joy.

Factoring in living abroad adds a new level of “interesting” to the plate. If you fall in this category, you and your student are not alone. Yes, there are complexities, but none which cannot be solved together with expert help. Not sure where to start? Here are some ideas:

  • Listen in to the free KC360 podcast for college search and admission insights in 15 minutes “bites” (you might hear a familiar voice!).
  • Unsure what to major in or where to even start in considering a college? Take a look at The College Project, a self-paced course for students to think through their options after high school, size of institutions, majors, careers, and build a college list and complete a college application strategy.
  • Overwhelmed by the finances of it all? The Scholarship Secrets course will help you understand the US financial aid system, uncover secrets to scholarships, and create a strategy to apply for them.
  • If access to universities is a frustration for you, join the free Virtual College Fair (September 30 – October 12, 2024) to hear from a variety of universities. Presentations are “on-demand” and can be watched in any time zone. The fair is open for two weeks to accommodate schedules, life, and so much more that enters into this season of our life! Register now here.
  • Access a free high school timeline for each grade and get helpful tips for your student and family.

My passion is for families to have resources which help them and make the college search and admission process less overwhelming. Being a global citizen has its challenges, and education is one of them. Know that you’re not alone and that there are resources to help you navigate even this road.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

As a TCK, a former college recruiter, and international education consultant, Kristi Steele created KC360 for international students and families just like you. KC360’s goal is to understand your family’s and student’s expectations for your college search and application journey. With a passionate commitment to TCKs and international students and experience in collegiate university recruiting, KC360 will assist and advise you throughout the college application process.

When Our Children Feel Rootless

I looked intently in my daughter’s eyes. Her normal sparkle was clouded over with hurt. She had been caught in a three-way friend drama for years, often feeling left out and like she could not compete. After the most recent installment, she seemed resigned.

“I mean, maybe it’s better this way anyway. When we move back to the US, then they’ll have each other,” she casually commented.

My heart broke. Where did this come from? Yes, we have eventual plans to move back to our home country, but no current plans. It isn’t something we talk about much; at least, not with our children — only occasionally. But clearly it has hung in the back of my daughter’s mind.

Witnessing my daughter’s experience of rootlessness is perhaps more painful than my own experience of it. For those of us who have children, you have likely asked the same questions:

Is this fair to do to my children?

What is the price they will have to pay?

How much trauma can we all bear?

Will we know when we need to make a change?

My daughter’s own sense of rootlessness echoed my own persistent feelings.

Some of us are better disposed to live in the present, to set aside questions of the future and memories of the past. Others of us struggle to live in the moment, constantly aware of the shifting sand beneath our feet and the marching on of time.

Some of us love living overseas and have settled in deeply, hoping to pass many years of our lives on fresh soil. Others of us have worked hard to live well in difficult places and never quite felt like we could fully settle.

Compounded with a sense of rootlessness is that of loneliness – who else around me feels what I feel? Am I the only one? Local friends and partners will not relate in the same way, nor will friends and partners from our passport countries. It can be difficult to share honestly, and this often feels like a burden we must shoulder alone.

On some level, while the intensity of the rootless feeling fades, it never truly disappears; at least, it hasn’t for me, not after eight years. While there has been an increased sense of home and community in our international context, I still do not feel like I am rooted in the way I wish I could be.

And yet, we seek to walk in this season with as much gratitude as we can muster, seeing that it is just that: a season. We pray, with the psalmist, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). We hold fast to Christ as our true home and recognize that any sense of rootlessness is part of living in broken world.

So I can look my daughter in the eye, into those bright, beautiful eyes, and say, “I know, my girl. It’s on my heart all the time too. Part of it is that we are living in this broken world – we’ll be rootless until Jesus comes to make it all right again. Another part is that we are a kind of stranger here, and always will be. But it’s okay – Jesus is with us, he knows what it is to be a foreigner, and we can hold fast to him. Some day, our hearts will feel completely at home.”

And while this doesn’t fix our feelings, it helps know what to do with them. Below is a prayer I’ve written for my daughter who struggles with rootlessness. May it be a blessing to you and your children:

A Prayer for When I’m Feeling Rootless

My Father, my true home,

My heart is unsettled in this place;
I feel rootless, wandering, floating.

I long to feel as though I belong,
As though this is my forever home.
I long to fit in, to not be different
Than those around me.
I long to not wonder when we will move,
Or imagine what that will be like.

And yet, I know my rootlessness
Comes from living in a broken world.
You will someday make all things new,
And this world will be the home you meant for me.

My soul is made to long
For you, Christ.
My heart is truly at home
In you, Christ.
My rootless wandering finds rest
In you, Christ.
My life is built on the solid rock
Of you, Christ.

And yet, while I am here,
Let me love well, and serve well.
Let me live in this season
With faith and trust that you will
Care for me all of my days.

Amen.

(Prayer drawn from Psalm 90:12; Luke 6:48; Ephesians 3:17; Colossians 2:7)

Introducing a New Middle Grade Fiction Novel for TCKs

Sam’s Roommate Disaster released today on Amazon as the newest TCK book on the market. 

Have you ever read a story and felt like you were reading your life? Growing up as a kid in Cameroon, I never had that experience – even though I poured over the books in our extensive homeschool library. My new book, Sam’s Roommate Disaster, is my attempt to change that for young TCKs. 

TCKs can get exhausted from frequent change and loss. While there’s a lot of loss in the globally mobile experience, there is also precious gain, and that is the beauty of the TCK experience. I want third culture kids to have relatable stories where, even in the pain of unexpected change, they see that it is worth leaning into new experiences and new people to see what is on the other side.

I wrote this book for the kids whose backgrounds are underrepresented in children’s literature. I wrote it for the kid who doesn’t like school and who struggles with reading. I wrote it for the one who daydreams during class, the one who wants to be outside exploring. I wrote it for the kid who does something without thinking and then wonders, “Why in the world did I just do that?” 

I wrote it for the kid whose friend moved away and they’re pretty they’ll never make a friend like that again. I wrote it for the kid who is misunderstood and doesn’t want anyone to know why. 

I wrote it for third culture kids who live behind cement walls, the ones sitting in metros, and the ones running barefoot through jungles. I wrote it for their monocultural cousins who need a sneak peek at childhood overseas. I wrote it for the kid who needs an imaginative escape into a world of friends and adventures. 

I wrote it for the moms who have to send their kids to boarding school. I wrote it for the dorm staff who became like second parents for TCKs during formative years. I wrote it for international school teachers who want a fresh book with settings that don’t have white picket fences and characters who make all the right choices. But mostly, I wrote it for your kid.  

I wrote Sam’s Roommate Disaster right in the thick of an incredibly difficult season in my own journey as a global worker. It was a time when I needed to come up for air. And that meant revisiting the awe and wonder of childhood stories, both mine and my husband’s. It meant sharing stories with my kids around the dinner table. 

It meant listening to the giggles of old friends as they told stories from their perspective. It meant opening doors to hear fresh adventures from my in-laws about their wild child, Sam, who did all the things, took all the risks, made some mistakes, and picked himself back up again. And it meant fanning a spark of creative writing which soon became a flame that brought me great joy. 

Disappearing into these stories transported me back to steamy jungle rains, clunky old bikes with tales that could fill libraries of books, tight sibling bonds, and small schools where your youth group leader is also your math teacher. It took me back to the feeling of dread after doing something dumb and realizing you made a mistake. It awakened the feeling of hot tears on freckled cheeks, the rush of wind through hair on a runaway horse, that first crush. It made me remember small class sizes where even the tattletale belonged and the unforgettable innocence of childhood BFFs.  

As your kids read this book, I hope it solidifies their belief that the world of third cultures is one in which they belong. This is their tribe and TCKs are their people, whether they’re in Thailand, Hungary, or Uganda.

If you grew up overseas and you read this to your kids, I hope it transports you back to a time of jungle rains, small schools, and BFFs. Mostly, I hope it unlocks your ability to share your own story with your kids, because that’s what they really need to hear. 

Book Teaser:

“Sam’s heart pounded like a hot basketball in his ears. If he heard one more snore from his roommate, his anger might just spill out, and there was nothing more embarrassing than crying in fifth grade. Scrunching the covers tighter around his head didn’t do anything to muffle the noise rumbling from the bottom bunk. Being eleven at boarding school was hard enough, let alone sharing a room with Jordan, the only kid at boarding school who snored like a freight train.”

Buckle up for adventures in the jungles of Congo with boarding school kid, Sam! Hold on tight, because 5th grade for Sam includes a run-in with a highly venomous green mamba, a runaway horse, a heart-pounding close call on his dirt bike, and an angry mama pig. His biggest challenge, however, has nothing to do with snakes or pigs. Sam’s greatest challenge is his new roommate, Jordan.

Jordan is making 5th grade impossible. He’s loud and messy, and he ignores Sam. When Sam realizes there may be more to the story, will he decide to keep his distance or give his roommate a chance?

What kids are saying:

“I like the suspense, the love, and disliking feelings.” –Sam, age 11 (Indonesia)

“Readers beware: full of motorcycle chases, green mambas, flying lizards, and the

dreaded banana bread.” – Michael, 8th grade  (Cameroon)

“I really loved how the descriptions made me feel like I was with them throughout their adventures! After reading this book I would really like to learn how to ride a dirt bike!” – Eliana, age 11 (El Salvador)

“It was really fun and exciting, and it was encouraging at the perfect time when I needed it.” – Charlie, age 9 (Hungary and Mongolia)

“This book was really great! I could really relate to my own life as a missionary kid and all the adventures I’ve had!” – Kora, age 10 (Colombia)

“It was cool to see what missionary life is like in other countries. Just watch out for banana bread and lizards with parachutes!” – Andrew, age 12 (Indonesia)

“I liked this book because there are a lot of different adventures, and it’s based on real life. It’s an exciting book, and there’s never a dull moment!” – Asher, age 9 (South Africa)

Fun Facts to share with your kids AFTER they’ve read the book:

Yes, the stories are based on true events from either Sam’s childhood or mine. 

Yes, I’m one of the characters. 

No, I didn’t meet Sam until high school. 

Yes, Sam hates bananas that much. 

Yes, soccer really was that big of a big deal. Jordan went on to co-found Petrichor Football Association. 

Yes, Josh and his red-headed crush ended up together. They live on a happy little farm in Indiana. 

Yes, the lizards were fine.

No, I’m not done writing kids’ books. I’m working on Book 2 of the Barefoot Around the World series.

Where to find it:

Head to Amazon now and grab your copy of Sam’s Roommate Disaster! Dive into exciting new tales that resonate with TCKs around the world. For a limited time, enjoy special discounts on b ebooks ($3.99) and paperbacks ($8.99) through August 23rd. Let’s revive storytime and make it an adventure your kids will love!


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