Tag: third culture kids

Finally, Proof That Kids Can Thrive While Growing Up Overseas

Last month marked twenty years since I started working with TCKs and globally mobile families. I have always believed that international life is a great experience and that we all gain so much from it — no matter how young (or old) we are.

Yet through the years I have met a lot of young people who experienced a lot of pain during and following their international years. I have spent a lot of time listening to them and their stories, too. I joined TCK Training because I believe so much in the mission of preventive care: that there are practical things we can do to help families thrive through international transitions. 

Now, we have the research to prove it.

Preventive Care That Works

The field of preventive science is relatively new. While research into Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) has been going on for nearly 30 years, research into Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) isn’t even 10 years old.

Last year, TCK Training surveyed over 1,600 Adult TCKs about their childhood experiences — both the hard things and the resilience-building factors. In September, we released findings on how both ACEs and PCEs impact long-term wellness for TCKs. The biggest takeaway was that 5-7 PCEs dramatically improve long-term outcomes for TCKs, whether or not they experienced childhood trauma.

There are several different studies measuring different protective factors. We modeled our research after Bethell et al’s 2019 study with seven Positive Childhood Experiences. We asked TCKs seven questions, and each time they answered ‘true’ or ‘mostly true’ they received a score of 1, leading to a total score of 0-7. 

  1. I felt safe/accepted when talking about my feelings with my family.
  2. I felt my family stood by me during difficult times.
  3. An adult in my home made me feel safe and protected.
  4. I felt supported by friends.
  5. I felt a sense of belonging during my high school years (around age 14-18).
  6. I engaged in community traditions I enjoyed. (These might include religious festivals, national holidays, school events, or annual gatherings.)
  7. I always had at least two adults in my life who genuinely cared about me (not including my parents).

The difference in long-term outcomes for TCKs with all seven PCEs vs TCKs with no PCEs was astounding. For example, TCKs with all 7 PCEs were:

  • 63% less likely to be diagnosed with anxiety
  • 72% less likely to abuse alcohol or use illicit drugs
  • 86% less likely to be diagnosed with PTSD
  • 2.1x more likely to say being a TCK was “the best way to grow up”
  • 5.4x more likely to say the TCK life was “wonderful, no regrets”

Yet this is only part of the story. High PCEs often come with low trauma. In order to really test whether PCEs were responsible for better outcomes, we divided our survey respondents into four groups. First we divided them into those with 0-4 PCEs and those with 5-7 PCEs; then we divided each of those groups by high/low trauma scores.

This meant we could look just at TCKs with high trauma, or just with low trauma, and see whether PCE scores made a difference within each group. Over and over, through dozens of different factors, high PCE scores made a difference for TCKs.

Even When Life Is Hard, Preventive Care Matters

We repeatedly saw that even when TCKs experienced trauma during childhood, those with higher PCE scores had better long term outcomes. For a TCK with 3 or more ACEs, also having 5-7 PCEs meant they were:

  • 38% less likely to smoke
  • 67% less likely to abuse prescription medication
  • 46% more likely to say that the TCK life was a good experience overall
  • 2x more likely to say living abroad made their family closer
  • 2.3x more likely to say the TCK life was “wonderful, no regrets”

Sometimes, the traumas that form an ACE score are hard for parents and caregivers to prevent. Bad things happen, even to good people, good families, and when everyone tries their best. For example, parents struggling with their own emotional or mental health during difficult international transitions are not always capable of parenting at their best, especially when solid support is in short supply. 

The good news is that protective factors are powerful — and many occur outside the home. Every family needs a village to provide additional support for their children, to create this protective shield against the difficulties of life.

Preventive Care Is for ALL Families

Yet preventive care is not just for those kids and families having a difficult time. Preventive care helps everyone! TCKs with 0-2 Adverse Childhood Experiences also benefited from the presence of Positive Childhood Experiences! Those with 5-7 PCEs were:

  • 38% less likely to abuse alcohol
  • 43% less likely to be diagnosed with a chronic illness
  • 44% less likely to experience suicidal ideation
  • 52% less likely to self harm
  • 63% less likely to have 25 or more sexual partners

The good news is that these protective factors make a difference in the lives of all TCKs, even when they are not experiencing childhood trauma. 

We Can All Make a Difference

Something that was clear across each group was the impact of PCEs on TCKs’ perception of their parents’ work abroad. If you’re anything like me, you’ve heard stories and read articles about missionary kids who felt let down by their parents’ work, by the missionary organisation they worked for, and even by God for sending their family to do such a hard thing. 

I think it is therefore really important to know that in our research, a TCK with all 7 PCEs was 2.2x more likely to be proud of their parents’ work abroad than a TCK with no PCEs. And whether they had low or high trauma scores, TCKs with 5 or more PCEs were 44% more likely to be proud of their parents’ work abroad. 

Part of caring for missionary families well is being the village they need to provide emotional support through life. Being the friends who form their community — sharing friendship, being ‘aunties’ and ‘uncles’ to their children, and celebrating traditions together. These things make a big difference in the lives of children growing up globally.

Learn more about the Protective Factors:

Free course on implementing PCEs

Read the free research report

Read the full research report

Watch the workshop explaining the research

Photo by Ryan Stefan on Unsplash

 

The Hidden Stresses of MKs Who Love Missions

Ormiston Gorge, Central Australia

I’m writing this from my sister’s dining table. Despite the depth of Australian winter, sun streams through the high windows, gradually moving across a beautiful original artwork by a local indigenous artist here in the central desert region of the country.

Over the past six weeks here I’ve leaned into my own artist heart by spending hours sitting in the beautiful red desert landscape, painting watercolours. If you’ve ever painted with watercolours yourself, you’ll know there is a lot of patience required. I paint a layer, wait for it to dry, then paint the next layer, slowly building a picture layer by layer, one colour at a time.

During this time as I’ve sat down at my computer, I’ve leaned into a different part of my heart, one with a different kind of artistry – data analysis. While research and data analysis may not sound as artistic, entrancing, and interesting to you as it does to me, it is something I am passionate about.

There is something akin to the patient layer-building of watercolour painting. The most interesting and important answers don’t come to light immediately. Yet as I filter and layer the huge amounts of data offered to us by the adult TCK community, pictures begin to emerge. In this post I am going to share with you just one of the pictures emerging over the last few months.

Surveying TCK Experiences 

In our cumulative decades of work with TCKs, we’ve heard some things repeated time and time again — opinions about their parents, opinions about their childhood, joys and struggles. When we developed our latest survey, we drew on that experience to see how widely certain sentiments were shared. 

Among them, we offered four key statements related to a sense of identity with parents’ work:

  1. “That I belonged to something greater than myself (identified with their work/purpose)”
  2. “Proud of my parent’s work”
  3. “Desire to ‘follow in their footsteps’ in some way when I grew up”
  4. “Indifferent to my parent’s occupation abroad (no different to anywhere else)”

We also offered four key statements around various stressors related to their experiences living overseas during childhood:

  1. “Pressure to be ‘perfect’ as my behavior reflected on my parent’s employer”
  2. “Anxiety as a result of duties assigned to me (i.e. tour guide, translator)”
  3. “Pressure to ‘perform’ while visiting our passport country”
  4. “Worry that misbehavior on my part might result in our family having to leave the country”

From this we had some wonderful initial stats, and some troubling initial stats – all of which we shared in our First Look research report. With more analysis over time, deeper connections led to a discernible pattern: groups who identified strongly with their parents’ work and purpose abroad also carried higher levels of stress, anxiety and/or pressure connected to it.

Similarly, the more indifferent a group was to their parents’ occupation abroad, the less likely they were to experience these pressures. For example, TCKs who grew up in corporate families were far less likely to express a sense of connection to their parents’ employment; in fact, nearly half said they were “indifferent” to their parents’ work, and only 16% felt a sense of belonging/purpose connected to it. Yet corporate TCKs were also far less likely to feel the various pressures listed above. “There seemed to be benefits to this ‘disconnect’ from parents’ occupation” (Corporate Adult TCKs & Mental Health: First Look at the 2024 Research).

What This Means for Missionary Families

This pattern is crucial when we talk about missionary kids. Missionary kids expressed a really strong connection to their parents’ work abroad – something most of us want to see and encourage! Three quarters of missionary kids felt proud of their parents’ work, and they also identified with the sense of purpose it created; more than half wanted to follow in their parents’ footsteps. Only 10% of missionary kids said they were “indifferent” to their parents’ work (Adult Missionary Kids & Mental Health: First Look at the 2024 Research). These are statistics to make hearts that love missions and missionary families leap for joy.

And yet.

More than half of missionary kids felt pressure to be ‘perfect’ while living abroad (compared to a quarter of corporate TCKs).

Even more missionary kids felt pressure to “perform” when they visited their passport countries. More than any other sector of TCKs – in fact, more than twice as likely than most other sectors, including corporate TCKs.

Why does this happen?

Let’s think about one missionary kid, rather than the huge group who contributed to this survey. Think of a child or teenager who is very proud of the missionary work their parents do. They feel their whole family is involved in this work, and so they feel a sense of connection, of being part of this work, and derive a sense of purpose from being in this overseas country in order to do this work. 

Because of their emotional investment in this work, they will naturally develop a sense of responsibility for the work. They want to do what they can do to help. But what does that mean, when their day looks like going to school and being part of the community? Perhaps they even ask their parents how they might contribute. And their parents let them know that simply living their everyday lives as witnesses is powerful. 

Because children can easily extrapolate concepts well beyond what well-meaning adults intended, soon we have a child who has internalised the idea that everything they say and do in public impacts the work their parents – their whole family – is doing. Slowly, they feel a burden of responsibility that goes beyond the everyday witness their parents intended.

Or perhaps think of a child who enjoys their life overseas but suddenly finds themself in their passport country for home assignment. Every weekend they stand in front of a new group of strangers (some of whom call them by name and act like they know everything their family does) and perform stories or songs of what they do in the “foreign country” that is the only home they know. They field odd questions, talk about daily routines to laughter and astonishment, and throughout it all make sure to smile brightly because they realise at least on some level that their family’s livelihood depends on these people who know nothing about their life.

A child who on the outside seems to be invested in the mission and well behaved may be carrying a heavy burden of stress on the inside.

Leaning in with Intentional Care

Praising the benefits of missionary life without acknowledging the difficulties does missionary families and missionary kids a disservice. The picture emerging from the data is that these two sides of missionary kid life are connected.  Understanding that this connection exists allows us to be intentional about providing targeted preventive care that supports missionary kids and their families.

A Life Overseas is a great repository of resources for missionaries, member carers, and supporting churches. This includes a range of articles that acknowledge potential pitfalls in seeing missionary kids as extensions of their missionary parents. Three great examples of this are My Kids are Not Little Missionaries, 3 Ways to Care for the Heart of Your Missionary Kid and Don’t Call Your Kids World Changers. 

Another way to help MKs with internalized pressures is by asking great questions to facilitate open and honest communication. A Life Overseas also has some great posts with suggestions for questions to ask TCKs – whether you are a parent, a caregiver, or a supporter in a church lobby! These include: 10 Questions to Routinely Ask Your TCKs, 10 Questions Missionary Kids Would Love to be Asked, and Questions Third Culture Kids and Their Parents Love.

Of course, we always recommend learning about Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) and their proven relationship to long-term wellness. TCK Training offers a free video miniseries on PCEs designed to help parents implement these fundamentals intentionally in a globally mobile life. 

Meanwhile, I continue to paint – with watercolours and with data – as I complete a few projects that mean the world to me. I’ve been teaching my nine-year-old niece to paint watercolours, while painting a local ring-necked parrot she ‘commissioned’ from me.

And after months of painstakingly layering data analysis, I have completed new research on Protective Factors that Improve Long Term Wellness in TCKs (launching September 16th, 2025). You may not be a painter, but I hope you enjoy the picture painted in this research report. It provides joy and hope for all of us caring for the hearts of TCKs around the world.

Hearing the Good and the Hard of Missionary Kid Lives

I have been working in TCK research for over ten years. That includes six large scale surveys (with 200-2000 responses) and over 600 interviews. The data I’m currently analysing comes from TCK Training’s 2024 survey of 1,643 TCKs around the world. It was a long survey covering a lot of topics and I wish I could spend ten hours a day delving into the details! For now, the initial data on missionary kids has a lot to say about their experiences. (The full First Look data drop is available paywall free.) 

In this post I will share with you four key things we learned about missionary kids (MKs) through the research:

  1. Most missionary kids are glad they grew up abroad.
  2. Good things and hard things are often intertwined.
  3. Missionary kids feel a lot of pressure.
  4. Emotional support and mental health are key.

1) Most missionary kids are glad they grew up abroad. 

Throughout my research I have learned many hopeful things about how TCKs perceive their globally mobile childhoods. The vast majority have positive things to say about their experiences, even though they may in the same breath acknowledge that there were also difficulties. In this latest research we learned:

  • 91% of MKs said growing up abroad was a good experience overall.
  • 76% of MKs said it made their family closer.
  • 72% of MKs said it was “the best way to grow up.”

2) Good things and hard things are often intertwined.

Life is rarely black and white. To truly understand the lives of missionary kids, we must hear the nuance in their stories — that there were hard things along with the good things. Even many MKs who had the most difficult experiences of childhood also saw positives in their upbringing.

  • 98% of MKs said, “I can see both good parts and hard parts in my story.”
  • 96% of MKs said, “There were hard times, but it enriched my life.”
  • 83% of MKs said, “I enjoyed my childhood, but I think some things could have been handled better.”
  • And only 7% of MKs said living abroad “ruined my life.”

3) Missionary kids feel a lot of pressure.

When TCK Training asked TCKs about various childhood experiences connected to their parents’ work, we found that missionary kids were much more likely to feel certain pressures when they were children.

  • 69% of MKs felt “pressure to ‘perform’ while visiting our passport country”; they were twice as likely as other TCKs to feel this pressure.
  • 54% of MKs felt “pressure to be ‘perfect’ as my behavior reflected on my parent’s employer.”
  • 27% of MKs said that as children they felt “anxiety as a result of duties assigned to me (i.e. tour guide, translator)”; they were twice as likely as other TCKs to feel this anxiety.

Through my interviews I have also learned that many missionary kids try to hide their stress from their parents, as they do not want to cause additional burden to their parents. They love their parents and recognise the strain they already carry. 

4) Emotional support and mental health are key.

While those of us working to support missionary kids have long seen impacts on their mental health, when the results came in, the numbers were still heavy. 

  • During childhood, 37% of MKs lived with someone who had a serious mental health crisis.
  • 34% of MKs reported experiencing a serious mental health crisis themselves during childhood.
  • 40% of MKs had been diagnosed with a mental illness during their lifetime.
  • 86% of MKs experienced symptoms of at least one mental health concern during their lifetime.

We’re also seeing that missionary kids are less likely to receive diagnoses than other TCKs. For example, while 47% of MKs experienced symptoms of PTSD, only 12% received a diagnosis (which is still nearly double the rate of PTSD diagnosis in the US population). 

Missionary kids are experiencing the impact of not only their own mental health struggles, but the struggles of their parents. One thing I’ve seen over and over through our research and working with thousands of TCKs and their families around the world is that when parents are doing well, they have the energy and capacity to care for their kids better. So not only do the TCKs need access to quality mental health support, but getting the parents this kind of support is crucial!  

There are a range of issues contributing to a lack of mental healthcare for missionary families. Many families lack access to quality mental health services due to a remote location, financial stress, frequent mobility, language access, or a combination of these factors. 

Stigma around mental health can also play a role in preventing MKs (and their parents) reaching out for the support they need. It is important that we talk openly about mental health and the ways we benefit from getting support.

Prevention Matters

The saying “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure” (attributed to Benjamin Franklin) is appropriate here. I believe this data demonstrates the importance of preventive care for MKs and missionary families. My hope and desire is that we support families in such a way that we see rates of mental health concerns drop over time, and MKs flourish — on the field and throughout their lives.

One of the many reasons I love my work at TCK Training is that we believe that international life is a good thing and that it can go hand in hand with a healthy family life. We work to create quality preventive care resources, and we share our research freely because we believe quality research is a critical component of exceptional TCK care. We want caregivers, parents, and supporting churches alike to be equipped to care for TCKs well! 

 

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

Photo by Kasturi Laxmi Mohit on Unsplash

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 Truly International Scope of the TCK World

If you’ve spent much time around A Life Overseas, you probably know that Third Culture Kids (TCKs) spend at least part of their growing up years living outside their passport countries, expecting a return ‘home’ to a country at least somewhat foreign to them.

When you picture TCKs, what do you see? Who do you imagine? An American missionary kid living in Africa, or Asia?That child is certainly a TCK. So is the Cameroonian daughter of a UN employee growing up in Tanzania, the Singaporean businessman’s son growing up in Thailand, and the children of a Brazilian missionary growing up in Lebanon. Each one of these examples resembles a TCK I know.

TCKs don’t just grow up around the world. TCKs are from every country in the world!

Seeing the Diversity of TCKs

I first learned about the TCK world in the context of a large international church, where families from over 70 countries met together each week for worship. It was ten years after my own teenage repatriation.

The young people in the youth group where I volunteered came from a variety of backgrounds. Some were missionary kids, while others had parents in the diplomat corps, the military, or multinational businesses. Still other parents worked in international schools, local universities, or ran their own businesses.

When we ran youth camps (and had to register with the local police), I would carry a stack of 100+ passports to the administration office of the conference centre to fill in paperwork. I knew TCKs from Brazil, Burundi, China, DR Congo, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Guyana, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Madagascar, Malaysia, Nigeria, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Zambia, and many more nations. (Incidentally, the paperwork process also helped me learn the Chinese names for many nations!)

One of my favourite parts of my first book, Misunderstood, is near the back. There is an appendix called “Global Contributions” which lists all the countries that the 270 TCKs I interviewed and the 750 TCKs I surveyed came from and lived in. The 165 territories listed include 153 of the 193 UN member nations. My TCK cohort came from 86 different passport countries. The first section of the book is short, but it quotes eight TCKs bearing eight nationalities: Australia, China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the UK, the USA, and Zambia.

Listening to the Stories of TCKs

It is so important to hear the stories of TCKs, including missionary kids, who live very different lives than what we might normally associate with the ‘picture’ of a TCK. They have important things to bring to the TCK table. 

Through the years I’ve continued to listen, and learn, from more stories.

I’ve learned from the stories of missionary kids growing up in indigenous communities in their own passport countries (in Brazil and Australia) about the great cultural and linguistic differences they face within their own borders. 

I’ve learned from the stories of Indian and Nigerian missionary kids at ‘home’, where moving to a new state can mean the community has a different language, a different religion, a different culture — and different expectations to go along with each. Places where your name can mark you as different and not belonging, all without ever leaving your passport country.

I’ve learned from the stories of Chinese missionary kids living in the Middle East and Central Asia, stuck between languages and cultures, without access to other TCKs, living vicariously through the internet. 

I’ve learned from the stories of Brazilian missionary kids, changing countries and school years mid-year (something an Aussie TCK like me can commiserate with), always pushed back but never moved forward due to language barriers and curriculum changes. Many ended up finishing high school at age 20. Others were left either without the curriculum capacity to attend university in Brazil or the finances to study elsewhere. 

I’ve learned from the stories of missionary kids growing up on ministry ships that travel the globe. These TCKs often have parents from different countries and/or cultures, and they may even have been born during a stop along the way. They build their own international culture on board ship as they travel. Finding a sense of belonging in any single culture can leave them feeling out of their depth. 

I’ve learned that my experience as an Australian TCK going to an American school in the USA resonates with a lot of South American TCKs going to local schools in different Spanish-speaking countries, Taiwanese TCKs going to school in mainland China, and African TCKs going to school in a neighbouring country that, while also English-speaking or Francophone, was culturally very different.  

Hearing Global Voices

When voices that have similar or parallel experiences to our own are easy to find, we must put in effort to find the voices that are different. That effort is so worth it! While a lot of TCK literature and conversation comes from primarily western voices, with primarily white and English-speaking backgrounds, there is a much wider variety to tap into. Here are some suggestions if you want to listen to more stories:

The Round Trip Stories podcast is currently doing a season on Third Culture Kids and has TCKs from a range of backgrounds sharing their stories.

The Living With No Roots podcast is hosted by an Ivorian/Congolese TCK who grew up in Lebanon. Interesting reflections as well as some guests who share their own stories.

Talks with a TCK Friend is a podcast hosted by a Filipino TCK who has hosted a range of TCKs from different backgrounds for conversations about their experiences.

The Global Chatter podcast shares stories from TCKs and expats all over the world with a very diverse set of experiences.

Some older podcasts (no longer updating) also hold treasures of stories for those who want to listen. Some of these include TCK Tales podcast, Third Culture podcast, Barely African podcast, When Life Gives You Calamansi podcast, and Third Culture Stories (which captures the TCKs of Asia forums).

There are also books written by TCKs from non-western backgrounds, and there is much we can learn from their insights. These include Girl Uprooted by Lena Lee, The Third Culture Teen by Jiwon Lee, and Tales of a Diplomat’s Daughter by Marie Suazo.

I always have my ears open to listen to more stories, so please share your own suggestions for us in the comments!

Coming soon…

As a researcher, I believe another important way to hear TCKs’ voices is through quantitative research. In my role as TCK Training’s research director, I am currently neck deep in data analysis following our latest survey. I was delighted to find 93 passport countries represented amongst our survey’s 1,643 respondents. We have enough variety in responses to compare responses between TCKs from USA/Canada, the other Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia/NZ. I am so excited for what we will learn as we listen to these voices! Stay tuned for the first major drop of data in early 2025.

 

Photo by Atikh Bana on Unsplash

 

A Summer Back “Home”

written by a Third Culture Kid

It was summertime when I realized that home was no longer home. The town where I grew up was quite small – it only took about ten minutes to drive between the two hills that bordered the town.

The buildings in the middle were old-fashioned. Everything seemed old now. The parks I walked through, the school where I learned cursive and addition, all of them were nostalgic for me, but normal for everyone else. The green fields I once drove by everyday felt new again.

I had taken these places for granted, not yet knowing how easily things can go from common to sparse. I remembered the buildings, but they didn’t seem to remember me. How long would it take for the people to forget me too?

My brother was lucky, in a way. He was too little when we left and remembered nothing about the little town where we grew up. Meanwhile I, eight years old and still taller than him, had left with broken, random memories.

Grandparents would often ask, “Do you remember this?” pointing at the buildings as we passed them. I always nodded, not wanting to disappoint them with the fact that I had yet to remember what we did there or what mattered about them. I did not want to disappoint them with the fact that the only building I wanted to go to was my house. Not here, back in Thailand.

“Do you remember your friend —-?” I would nod once more, not bothering to remind them of the fact that I had left those friends behind, made new ones, and not talked to them since. I remembered my home, but I also didn’t. 

The culture shock was not expected. After all, I had grown up there. The paved, clean roads, the rooms filled with English, the sea of white wherever we walked. The talkative strangers, who acted as if everyone they met had been their friend for years.

It was all different. It was new, but not new. The habits I had picked up in Thailand carried through. I was nine years old, reminding myself I didn’t have to bow, didn’t have to take off my shoes outside. One day I would learn to become a whole different person, the habits just barely slipping through a facade.

In Canada, I became “the girl who is from Thailand.” In Thailand, I became “the girl who is from Canada.” I could never be fully either. I was stuck between two cultures, two worlds, at only ten years old. I was home, but I also wasn’t.

A pandemic passed, and suddenly I was a teenager. I was thirteen, relatives back “home” telling me how much they missed me and wanted me to come back, already starting to assume I’d come back “home” for university.

“You could always stay here with me while your family is in Thailand,” my aunt would say. I didn’t want to disappoint them with the fact that I didn’t miss Canada. I didn’t want to travel the long distance, didn’t want to go there after university, didn’t want to leave my home. 

Canada felt cold in more ways than one. Thailand was my home. The fruit was sweeter, the weather was warmer, and I felt at home. I enjoyed showing it to them, but it always ended up being us who made the trip. I was fourteen, putting on a face, learning the ways of pretending I loved Canada. I was fourteen, acting as I was expected to be: the oldest granddaughter. The Canadian-but-Thai girl. The eight-year-old girl I left behind, yet my family still knew me as. I knew my role. My mother taught me well. 

I was Canadian. I was Thai. I was international. I was eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen. I was so many things at once. I was acting. I was overwhelmed. Who am I? Who do they want me to be? Which path am I supposed to follow? What do I do? Who do I want to be? I didn’t know. I would never know, and I’d be stuck acting as different people for different groups forever and I can’t do it anymore and–-

Then, all of the sudden, I’m fifteen. I’m fifteen, and I realize the truth. It didn’t matter where I was from. What I was was a child of God. I wasn’t part of Canada, or Thailand, but part of the kingdom of the King. The only opinion that mattered was His. He accepted me for who I was, whether I was Canadian or Thai or anything else. He gave me peace. I still feel as though my relatives won’t see my whole, true self. But now I know who I am, and my inner child can rest.

When Roots Don’t Stay Rooted

Somewhere along the way in this globally mobile life, I subconsciously and mistakenly adhered to the idea that other people – the non-globally mobile folks – don’t move. Our life is so chaotic in its never-ending transitions that I, apparently, fell into a false belief that no one else does what we do, not even a little bit.

Who else goes back and forth regularly between passport country and country of service, packing up belongings with practiced precision? To be on the move is part and parcel of the expat life. As we’ve spent the past several months in America for our home assignment, I’ve felt validated in the uniqueness of our globally mobile life because several people have told me as much. “You move around so much. We can’t imagine doing that.”

While it’s true that most people don’t move around so much, it’s also true that people do move. Which is what I apparently forgot, or didn’t want to believe, because it was better for my emotional well-being to lean on the assumed stability of those who stay put.

People who stay put offer an anchor to those of us who move around. When the anchor is pulled up, we don’t always know where to land anymore. 

So when my parents told us they’d decided to move from my hometown – the only place I’d grown up and the only place our family had landed during home assignments in the States – I suddenly realized how much I’d depended on their stability to extend itself onto us. Their rootedness had offered roots to us too, an anchor that I never imagined being pulled up.

I recently reread the story of Cain and Abel and found myself gobsmacked by Cain’s curse. While the first part is bad enough – the ground will no longer yield crops for him – it was the second part that haunted me: “You will be a restless wanderer on the earth” (Genesis 4:12b).

The curse of Cain was to wander the earth, to be rootless, to have no particular place to call home. What a curse! To not know where you belong, to be unable to put down roots and thus consign your children to the same rootlessness as you with no sense of home. It’s no wonder Cain responded with, “My punishment is more than I can bear.”

The Lord’s punishment was just, as are all His judgements, yet I can’t help but feel empathy for the world’s first murderer. I never could have understood such a consequence before becoming a wanderer myself, albeit by God’s calling rather than His consequences. But what a shock to realize that God’s calling on my life was another person’s punishment.

Being unable to answer the question, “Where is home?” is a unique struggle that few people face. As expats, we sometimes even wear the struggle like a badge of honor, often reminding ourselves of the profound and comforting quote from Tolkien: “Not all those who wander are lost.”

Although Tolkien clearly meant that the journey can be its own end where we find meaning and purpose, and although I believe that to be true, it’s also true that some of those who wander are indeed lost. Some are wanderers, by definition, because they don’t know which way will lead them home.

That is how I feel. I am a wanderer, lost, unable to answer the question, “Where is home?” My answer to this question has become nearly as confusing and convoluted as my children’s answer, which attempts to explain that their parents are from different states and where they were born is different than where they live when they’re in America which is different from where they now live in Kenya which is different than where they used to live in Kenya.

Part of the problem is that American culture doesn’t clearly define “home.” In the culture where we live in Kenya, “home” is where the family hails from. No matter where you may travel or end up living, your home is at the shamba, the “home place” where your family has lived for generations. Granted, it’s relatively easy to define since most of the family doesn’t move anywhere – subsistence farmers tend to stay put. 

Still, it’s deeply entrenched in a person from the day they’re born that home is the land where the family is from, and anyone who does leave (for a job or school or whatever else) can come home anytime and be welcomed and feel at home. Furthermore, it’s expected that everyone will be buried at home, at the shamba. No matter where you are when you die, you should be buried at home to rest there forever.

I’ve acquired enough of an appreciation for this aspect of Kenyan culture to wish that my own American culture was more like it. It’s fairly easy for a Kenyan to answer the question, “Where is home?” I wish it were that easy for me.

The one place on earth that I feel most at home is my parents’ house, the one they are moving away from. If I were Kenyan, I could be buried there, preferably by the pond where the pine trees grow.

As I was processing and grieving the upcoming change that means I’ll never set foot in my childhood home again, I confessed to our kids that my parents’ house is where I feel most at home in the world. Our son instantly questioned me. “You don’t think [where we live in Africa] is home?” Well, yes, I do. But also, no. It certainly defines “home” for all five of us together, but would I want to be buried there? Probably not.

Even before the current rootlessness I feel, I’ve spent years helping our third culture kids think about home this way: “Whenever we’re together, we’re home.” Or another iteration: “Wherever we’re together, we’re home.” Home is not a place, but the people we are with.

As I cling to my people through this transition, I’m reminded that no matter how rooted or rootless we feel on this earth, not one of us is truly at home here. As C.S. Lewis so succinctly said, “We were made for another world.”

Psalm 90:1 says it best: “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.” Even those who have a shamba to return to where the family has lived for generations will never fully be at home. Our home is not a place, but a Person. The Lord alone is an anchor that will never be pulled up. His promises to me – to love me forever and never leave or forsake me – are the only roots I need.

In the same stanza with that famous Tolkien line about wanderers is another line: “Deep roots are not reached by the frost.” Deep roots – the deepest of roots – will not be reached by whatever in this world attempts to freeze them. Deep roots in Christ are not reached by the transitions of others. They are not reached by an inability to answer the question, “Where is home?” They are not reached by any fear or grief or loss of place.

Deep roots remain rooted. What a comfort that is to this sometimes restless wanderer.

Photo from Pixabay

 

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!


Follow Raising a Family Overseas on Instagram and Facebook for practical tips and conversations about doing global family life.

Research and Resources for Improving TCKs’ Mental Health

When my book Misunderstood was published, I was immediately asked if/when I would write another book. At the time I felt I had nothing left to write. I’d put everything into those pages. Yet within a year a new idea started to form: a guidebook for Adult TCKs, showing that they are not alone in their struggles and sharing strategies for moving forward in healthy ways.

Since 2018 I have been doing both qualitative and quantitative research in aid of this project. It has been paused for multiple major medical issues and an incredibly disruptive unplanned pandemic relocation, among other reasons. During that time some wonderful resources for Adult TCKs have been released, which I regularly recommend. (These include Incredible Lives and the Courage to Live Them by Dr Rachel Cason, Belonging Beyond Borders by Megan Norton, and Girl Uprooted by Lena Lee).

Yet the dream of my wide-ranging guidebook persists. I have about 200 hours of interview recordings with 120 Adult TCKs from a variety of backgrounds, plus a survey with data I am starting to analyse. 

The survey was originally intended as a quick effort to guide my research by distinguishing which topics Adult TCKs thought were the most important to talk about. Due to my medical issues, I left it open far longer than originally intended, and it attracted over 800 complete responses. Not only that, but with such a large pool of responses from Adult TCKs of different ages, I learned some really interesting information as well. (You can find the survey information and data analysis here.)

In this post I share a few key things learned about ATCKs’ mental health, plus resources for supporting TCKs and their families.

Unresolved Grief

3 out of every 5 ATCKs said their adult lives were impacted by unresolved grief. Another 1 in 5 said their adult lives were ‘sometimes’ impacted by unresolved grief. 

While this won’t come as a surprise to anyone working with TCKs on a regular basis, it’s still a huge number. 80% of TCKs are impacted as adults by grief they haven’t processed effectively. This underlines the importance of giving TCKs of all ages (from young children through to adults) the tools to express their emotions, feel their feelings, and unstack their grief towers. 

I am so grateful that there are now excellent grief processing resources I can recommend for every age and stage! 

For young children, the picture book My Tower is Tumbling. 

For parents of children from toddlers to teens, the short book The Grief Tower, available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook, and the workshop Unstacking Your TCK’s Grief Tower. 

For both teen and Adult TCKs, Unstacking Sessions with an ATCK coach can be great. 

For Adult TCKs working through this themselves, there’s the short book Unstacking Your Grief Tower (ebook and paperback) and the Unstacking Your Grief Tower Self-Guided Course. 

For parents and caregivers who want to learn to support others, as well as ATCKs themselves, the workshops Grief Tower 101 and 201. 

For anyone at all (TCK or not), What Made That Feel So Hard? (ebook and paperback), which also has a Bible Study guide.

Depression and Anxiety

Half of the ATCKs who took my survey said their adult lives were impacted by depression, and in a separate question half said their adult lives were impacted by anxiety. Another 20% said their adult lives were ‘sometimes’ impacted by depression, and 20% ‘sometimes’ impacted by anxiety. 

This is by no means a scientifically rigorous study, but the fact that so many ATCKs feel that depression and anxiety have played a significant role in their lives should give us pause. Those of us working with TCKs have seen this anecdotally, though it can be hard to know if what you see in your work is true of the wider community or not – which is where large-scale surveys can be helpful. 

TCK Training has a whole section of resources specifically for Adult TCKs, and among the workshops available is one on Understanding Depression as an ATCK and another on Understanding Your Anxiety as an ATCK. 

For caregivers working with TCKs, there is also an annual Counseling TCKs Therapist Training (with 6 CE hours from the NBCC). The next one is coming up soon — on August 28th, 2024!

What do we do with this?

My little tester survey was never intended to be used as much more than a guide to show what needs our attention. These numbers definitely point to the importance of investigating what is happening with the mental health of Adult TCKs.

This is part of why I am so thankful for my work at TCK Training, where I am the Director of Research and International Education. We are currently collecting responses in a wide-ranging survey of Adult TCKs which includes questions about mental health experiences (both screening questions and questions about medical diagnoses) vetted by licensed psychologists and counsellors familiar with TCKs. 

So far there are 1,300 complete responses from ATCKs who are citizens of 85 countries. We would love to hear from even more Adult TCKs, so please check out the survey information to learn more and pass it on to others. The survey closes on August 31st – not much time left!

As with all our research, the analysis of this new research will be freely available with no paywall. You can read findings from our previous research and learn the latest as it appears on our research page. By the end of 2024, we should have more detailed data on the experiences of depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions in the TCK community. We believe that this data will help us as a community to better support families as they raise children abroad and to better support Adult TCKs as they move forward – no matter what their childhood experiences were.

 

Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

Transition Stress and TCKs: What does “normal” look like?

by Lauren Wells

“We haven’t seen our boy act like himself in over a year. We sometimes get glimpses of the fun, playful kid he used to be, but most of the time he’s like a shell of his old self. We don’t know where the kid we knew went.”

Fifteen months earlier, these parents had moved across the globe to a new country and culture. Their oldest son had started attending a local school while the younger siblings who weren’t yet school age stayed home. 

“We knew it would be a big transition for him,” they said. “We worried when he seemed to get more and more withdrawn, but we kept telling ourselves this was the normal transition stress everyone warned us about. But it’s been over a year now and it’s just gotten worse.” 

I wish I could tell you that this is the only time I’ve had a conversation like this with parents, but it’s not. The phrase “we figured it was just transition stress” is one I’ve heard many times in my work with hundreds of parents. 

When my colleagues and I work with families prior to a move or to train schools or organizations about family care, a topic we cover is how to distinguish between  “normal” transition stress and when it has gone beyond that. This preventive approach keeps normal transition stress from growing into a long-term state of emotional unhealth which will eventually turn into a crisis. 

So, what is normal transition stress for children? At what point should adjustments be considered because the transition stress has gone beyond a healthy limit? Knowing how to distinguish between healthy transition bumps and long-term adjustment issues is a critical part of preventive care. 

Red Zone/Green Zone

When my company (TCK Training) talks about transition stress for Third Culture Kids, we use the concept of Red Zone/Green Zone. When we’re in the Red Zone, our brain is flooded with stress hormones. This isn’t concerning for a short period of time, and in small doses it can actually be part of resilience building. While a developing brain shouldn’t be exposed to those stress hormones too consistently or for too long, during a major transition it’s normal for everyone to be in the Red Zone for a while.

What the Red Zone looks like for children/teens:

  • Uncharacteristic behavior challenges 
  • Being overly emotional
  • Appearing down or withdrawn
  • Being extra clingy to a parent 
  • Developmental reverting (accidents after being potty trained, sleep regressions, using baby talk, needing a comfort item they had grown out of, etc.) 
  • Development of new stress-induced habits (hair twisting, biting lips or skin, etc.) 
  • Not enjoying activities that used to bring joy 
  • Lack of ability to learn new concepts (this often shows up as  difficulty meeting academic milestones, such as reading, if those concepts are introduced while the child is in the Red Zone, or lower grades than the child’s typical performance)
  • Long periods of numbing/distracting behaviors (e.g. spending hours on an electronic device, consistently choosing to read for hours instead of spending time with family/other children) 

While these behaviors are all normal during a transition season, some behaviors require immediate support even during the normal Red Zone window of transition: 

  • Any sort of self-harm 
  • Suicidal ideation (or any statements that imply that they wish they weren’t alive)
  • Extreme physical aggression toward others 
  • A pattern of undereating or overeating 
  • Depressive or anxious symptoms that interfere with daily functioning

If your child experiences these symptoms at any point it is important to seek immediate professional mental health support.

The Green Zone

In the midst of Red Zone seasons like major transitions, planting “Green Zone moments” is important. This brings the child’s brain momentarily above water. While they still may be mostly in the Red Zone, consistently bringing in Green Zone activities can speed their progress out of the Red Zone.

Green Zone moments can include: 

  • Body movement (going for a walk, playing a sport, etc.) 
  • Anything rhythmic – rhythm regulates the brain (music, dancing, coloring, etc.) 
  • Talking about why this transition feels so hard (allowing them to share and/or giving them language for why they’re feeling this way) 
  • Laughing 
  • Deep breathing 
  • Experiencing something that feels physically comforting (a favorite food, a cozy blanket, a special treat, etc.) 
  • Quality time with a parent, sibling, or close friend 

How Long is Too Long?

After a major transition it is common for children to be primarily in the Red Zone for three months. During this time it is important to implement Green Zone moments for/with them. After three months, we typically see that children have fewer Red Zone days/moments. They begin to act more like their normal selves, trending toward a more consistent Green Zone state. When this is happening, we begin to see that: 

  • They can identify friends they like to play with 
  • Getting ready for school in the morning isn’t as difficult  
  • They talk about things they’re looking forward to
  • They want to join activities that brought them joy in the past or that tap into their skills or talents 
  • They are beginning to feel more confident about how to succeed in school
  • They seem to have a more positive outlook 
  • They are laughing and smiling more 
  • They are doing “Green Zone moments” without prompting 

Most often at around 6-9 months after a transition, the stress has eased and children are in the Green Zone more regularly.

What If It’s Not Getting Better?

The shift from Red Zone to Green Zone may seem slow and drawn out, and even in the best circumstances it can take time. If after six months a child doesn’t seem to be trending toward the Green Zone, we have moved beyond normal transition stress. At this point, professional support for the parents (and possibly the child as well) may be helpful. 

Shifts need to be made so that we can prevent the child going deeper into the Red Zone. The following questions can help determine factors that could be contributing to prolonged transition stress. You can begin making small shifts to see if they begin to make a difference. In the home, for example, you might schedule consistent one-on-one time with that child. In the environment, you might add an activity outside school hours that they would enjoy. 

In the Home

  • Are they receiving regular, positive attention from their parents? 
  • Do they feel they can talk about their emotions and feel heard and comforted? 
  • Do they feel physically safe? 
  • Are they sleeping well?
  • Does the family smile and laugh together often? 

In their Environment

  • Do they have access to activities that would give them Green Zone moments? 
  • Do they have potential friends in their class/school? 
  • Is their teacher a factor that is putting them in the Red Zone?
  • Are there specific stressors that they or you can pinpoint? 
  • Are there adults other than their parents investing in them?

Understanding the progression from Red Zone to Green Zone that happens during a transition season can help parents to monitor their children’s stress levels during times of change. Not only does this knowledge prevent children staying in the Red Zone for an unhealthy period of time, but it also gives parents strategies for improving family health and tools for making adjustments to get each family member on the right track if it doesn’t seem to be happening naturally.

There is so much hope in knowing what normal looks like and having tools to help your children when their transition stress goes beyond that point. To learn more about going through transitions of any kind, especially as a family, check out TCK Training’s self-directed Transitions Course.

Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash

~~~~~~~~~~~

Lauren Wells is the founder and CEO of TCK Training and the Unstacking Company and author of Raising Up a Generation of Healthy Third Culture Kids, The Grief Tower, and Unstacking Your Grief Tower. She is an Adult TCK who spent her teenage years in Tanzania, East Africa. She sits on the board of the TCK Care Accreditation as Vice Chair and is part of the TCK Training research team focusing on preventive care research in the TCK population.

What 7,300 Moons in Africa Taught Me

An outline of banana leaves framed the inky, glittering expanse that August night so long ago. My father raised his face to the moon and asked his father in heaven, “Lord, how many more moons will I witness in the African sky?” It was this farmer’s first night in Cameroon at the beginning of a Bible translation assignment that would span the next several decades of his life. With his homeland behind him, hundreds of moons would cross the Cameroonian sky before he would see an Iowa moon again. I was seven.

I have now witnessed over 7,300 moons in the African skies between my childhood and my adult life. Here are the stories I wish I could go back and tell that farmer the night he stared at the hollow moon and considered the cup he bore. 

“Dad, a few weeks from now, under this very moon, my brother will fall deathly ill from malaria, his feverish body folded in a wool blanket. Your desperate prayers will be driven by the crushing story of the two young sons your friends lost to malaria earlier this year. My brother will look small and skinny, and you’ll be scared. Take courage. God will heal your son, and Mom will nurse him back to health. God’s grace is sufficient for you.

“Under this tropical moon, Dad, my imagination will spring to life chasing tales and adventures across hundreds of pages in hundreds of books with the help of a kerosene lantern and a healthy diet of Vivaldi playing in the background. God’s grace is sufficient for you.

“The moon will be weak the night you lay your exhausted head down after pulling lifeless men, women with bodies broken open, and babies with legs twisted backwards out of a horrific taxi accident down the street. Brace yourself. It won’t be the last time you do this. God’s grace is sufficient for you.

“The light of this moon will peacefully fall on the volcanic mountain ranges around our home each night, and your children will close their eyes to the sound of your and Mom’s voices filling our cement hallway with humble prayers uttered from your room, over each child, each family member, each Cameroonian family member. God’s grace is sufficient for you.

“This moon will faithfully mirror the sun night after night from the first word you learn in Nooni till the day you write your first speech in the previously unwritten language. God’s grace is sufficient for you.

“By the haze of this equatorial moon, I will memorize the deeply furrowed lines in the faces of my Cameroonian mamas as they rotate roasting ears of corn by the fire of their mud brick kitchens for their white child. God’s grace is sufficient for you.

“The moon will light up the sky every Friday night when Mom lovingly folds pizza dough on her rickety kitchen table and us kids pick out our favorite movie. You’ll whistle your way out under the stars to fire up the generator for our weekly huddle of six around a 9-inch screen. God’s grace is sufficient for you.

“The moon will shine a little brighter in your world as you sit in your prayer chair and ponder the gift of Mom. You’ll burst with pride watching her skillfully raise a family in a foreign land, make excellent food from scratch, trek mountaintops in a skirt and boots, navigate impossibly rutted roads like a pro, and work with a people you’ll come to love to write the rules to a language that’s never been written. She’s pretty great, Dad. I’ll learn what a woman can do by watching her. God’s grace is sufficient for you.

“A sliver of this moon will dampen sad and heavy the night that our family experiences a Big T trauma that will forever shake our lives. Dad, the sun will come up the next day, but there will be a lot of hard moons after that. God’s grace is sufficient for you.

“The rays of this moon will pierce through a burglar-barred window the night that I will find freedom and love in Jesus Christ as a 16-year-old under your roof. God’s grace is sufficient for you.

“By the glow of this moon, a boy I met in geometry class will take me hippo-watching along the banks of a muddy river in the Central African Republic. Did you know that hippos grunt so loudly you can hear them a mile downstream? It will be amazing, Dad. You’re really going to like this boy. God’s grace is sufficient for you.

“Dad, a few years later, our trusty moon will cast light on a red clay path for that boy from geometry class as he steadies his shaky legs and musters up the courage to knock on your door. He’s going to ask you if he can love me forever. You’ll be glad you said yes. God’s grace is sufficient for you.

“This orb will pierce the sky with light and a never-ending message of hope through our family’s most tear-stained bitter nightmares and our sweetest toasted-marshmallow dreams. God’s grace is sufficient for you.

“This moon will dance like glitter the night the last verse of scripture is translated into the Nooni language, breaking open access for people to read God’s word in their heart language for the first time. They’re the same people who, four decades earlier, wrote a fervent plea in the language of colonizers for their mother tongue to be developed in written form. God’s grace is sufficient for you.

“Thousands of moons later, I will also look up at the unchanged luminous sphere, but this time it will be framed by the outline of macadamia trees on a farm in KwaZulu Natal. I will have just sung my own babies to sleep and herded my Irish Wolfhound to her blankie. I’ll think of you and Mom, and I’ll start my own mooncount on foreign soil as an adult. Oh, and Dad, the boy from geometry class is the best thing that ever happened to me. God’s grace is sufficient for me.

“Dad, whether it’s your first moon under the unpolluted Cameroonian sky or your eight hundred and thirty-first moon choked out by harmattan winds, you will find that God’s grace is sufficient for you. 7,300 African moons later, I came back to tell you that the moon at this angle is beautiful. It’s going to be an integral part of our family faith story. I’ve wrestled with the same moon, and I’ve found the same thing. God’s grace is not only sufficient, but lavish, for me.”