Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds

by David C. Pollock

  We believe there is a fairly simple answer. Paying for children who are attending school in the home country to visit their parents for vacations should be a normal benefit for those working with international organizations. That policy change alone would likely prolong the careers of many of their employees, and it would also go a long way to reducing many of the most challenging aspects of this globally mobile lifestyle.

  5. Support international community efforts to provide ongoing expatriate family services. Factors contributing to the relative success or failure of an overseas assignment include the degree to which a sponsoring organization provides ongoing assistance abroad. Barbara Schaetti, a consultant to the international expatriate community whom we quoted earlier, suggests that the challenge for a company lies in how to provide such assistance in every one of its international locations. She notes that, historically, most have relied upon their network of expatriate spouses. Support has been limited to paying membership dues to international women’s clubs and contributing funds to international school parent/teacher association programs. Some companies are taking a more proactive approach and contracting with International Employee Assistance Programs (IEAPs) to provide expatriates with access to confidential mental-health services on demand. Others are underwriting spouse-managed information centers and organizations, such as Lilly LINK for spouses of the Eli Lilly employees in Indianapolis, Indiana. They also may provide access to the Internet so that spouses in diverse locations can keep in contact. Still others sponsor events such as Families in Global Transition, where families and those who work with them meet for continuing exploration of how best to support globally mobile families.

  6.Help families prepare for repatriation and organizational reentry. Not only do companies lose valuable employees during the posting abroad, but disappointing statistics indicate that almost half of all expatriate families leave the company within one year of repatriation.8 Repatriating, or returning home, is frequently more difficult than moving abroad in the first place. Many, especially corporate employers, have been out of the loop while they were overseas. Their old job has been filled by someone else, their career is off track, and the company doesn’t know what to do with them or how to use the international and cross-cultural skills they’ve acquired. Also, while overseas these employees may have had a good bit of autonomy as decision makers or leaders, but at home their position is subordinate and it is hard for them that their opinions are no longer valued.

  Unfortunately, agencies and employees who prepared well for the original cross-cultural transition forget to prepare equally carefully for the transition home. Ideally, before the family leaves the host country, a formal or informal briefing should be provided by people who have experienced this type of transition before. Families should be reminded it is as important to build the RAFT we discussed earlier during this transition home as it has been prior to a transition anywhere else.

  The military has a great model for preparing both the deployed spouse and the family at home before they are reunited. Before the reunion, all members of the family—the serviceperson at the place of deployment and the family members at home—go through training on the common challenges reuniting families often face. This training helps them prepare better for the inevitable readjustment they will face as a family, despite the joys of being reunited.

  7. Offer reentry seminars for both parents and TCKs soon after repatriation. Several organizations sponsor week-long seminars every summer for TCKs who are returning to their home country, and some agencies hold debriefing seminars for the adults. Recently, some groups have begun offering programs for the entire family. Some agencies include support for their TCKs to go to reentry camps offered in different places around the globe.

  How Agencies Can Help Their TCKs in the Long Term

  Because so many TCKs grow up with a strong sense that friends from the sponsoring agency or their international school are a part of their extended family, belonging to this group becomes part of their very identity. It may be the one place outside their family where they have a deep sense of belonging. They want and need to stay connected to this support system in some way.

  Helping TCKs and ATCKs stay connected to one another and their past is beneficial for those directly involved as well as for the organization. Think of how advantageous it would be for a company if these children brought their cross-cultural skills back to it when they are ready for their own careers. Here are some ways administrators can play a vital role in helping TCKs who have grown up in their communities continue to thrive—ways that can also help in the healing process for those ATCKs who still need help adjusting.

  1. Support an alumni newsletter.. A growing number of agencies and international schools already help their TCKs and ATCKs maintain a sense of connectedness by helping them put out a newsletter. This forum not only distributes information, it also gives them the opportunity to discuss relevant issues from their past, to offer suggestions for the present, and to stay part of the “family.”

  2. Use the experience of TCKs and ATCKs. It’s ironic to see an organization bring in “experts” about a particular subject or country while ignoring the wealth of knowledge and experience of their own ATCKs.

  One ATCK sat through a meeting where a medical facility to be established in Brazil—modeled after one in the United States—was being described and discussed. She knew from the beginning that it wouldn’t work because the philosophical concepts on which the project was based were very different from those that shaped Brazilian thinking. When she attempted to raise a few questions, she was disdainfully put down. Three years later, after vast sums of money had been spent on the project, it folded, a complete failure.

  In New Zealand, one organization asked Ruth to speak about using the resources of the ATCKs in their organization. She asked how many ATCKs there were in the audience,and invited them to come forward and form a panel. As they fielded the questions from fellow employees, ruth never had to answer another question. The fact was they had this resource right among themselves and never thought to tap into it. Sadly, the ATCKs didn’t seem to recognize all they had to offer either.

  Perhaps all prophets are without honor in their own country, but agencies shouldn’t overlook the great resources they have in their ATCKs.

  3.Apologize for past organizational mistakes.. Unfortunately, as a direct result of poor administrative decisions from the company or sponsoring agency, some TCKs suffered the consequences. Some policies on relocating families, for example, have caused needless separations. An unfortunate choice of a caregiver in a boarding school may have done harm to some children. The errors may not have been willful, but they did happen. Even though those who made the decision may have since left the organization, it helps the employees—and the TCKs who were hurt by those policies—to know that the system itself is taking responsibility and that someone representing that system or organization is willing to apologize for past mistakes and, where needed, offer restitution.

  4. Support a TCK’s “journey of clarification.” Some agencies already offer a trip back to the host culture during or immediately after university for all of their TCKs who grew up overseas, even if the parents are no longer abroad. As mentioned before, going back to their roots and validating past experiences helps TCKs move on more smoothly to the next stages of life. But when the agency itself is willing to pay for such a trip, the journey becomes even more healing. TCKs receive the important message that they do indeed belong to a community that cares for them—not one that discards them at a certain age with no concern for the impact growing up as a member of that overseas community had on them. It’s another way of validating the value of their heritage and inviting them to build on it rather than disown it.

  International organizations must face the fact that they bear responsibility not only to their individual employees, but also to their families once they begin to give employees international assignments. Too often administrators have blamed failures totall
y on the person who didn’t succeed rather than looking at the part their agency or corporate policies and decisions may have played in the matter. We’re grateful for the growing awareness among companies and sponsoring organizations of their role in helping cross-cultural families be successful.

  Lessons from the TCK Petri Dish

  Another simple reality: While families are hugely important in every child’s life, so are the community and the various organizational systems around them— and none more so than for CCKs of all backgrounds. These groups may include the local Indian Community Center, Chinese Church, Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts. While all CCK families may not belong to as strong a sponsoring organizational system as traditional third culture families often do, these other types of civic, community, and religious communities can also give a great deal of support to CCKs and their families during many of the stress points of this journey. Adoption agencies can make all the difference in whether parents have a positive or negative experience during international adoptions by their policies and attitude toward those they serve. Local schools that have programs in place to welcome the child who just moved from a refugee camp overseas will change that child’s life forever. In today’s mobile world, there are many ways organizational and educational institutions can be helpful in creating positive environments for those who come to them and those they serve. It’s important for leaders in these groups to also recognize the vital role they play. We’ve talked a lot about what we can do for current TCKs, but what about those who are already adults? That’s our next discussion.

  CHAPTER 19

  It’s Never Too Late

  I remember when I was at school and struggled with unresolved grief. My health began to deteriorate because of this unresolved emotional baggage, and for two years I suffered from chronic pain. I couldn’t even use my hands without having pain—it was every student’s nightmare. Especially if you’re the type of student who spends most of his time chatting with his friends around the world.

  To make matters worse, I still didn’t know where I belonged, I was confused about my cultural identity, and I felt I had no real purpose. It was a really dark period in my life.

  But I’m really lucky I discovered and learned a few little things that would change the course of my life.1

  —Brice Royer, developer of TCKID.com

  IN SPITE OF THE GROWING EFFORTS TO HELP current TCKs better understand and use their cross-cultural experiences, many ATCKs, like Brice, have grown up with little assistance in sorting out the full effect of their third culture upbringing. No one understood that help might be needed, let alone what to do if it were.

  Even so, as Brice also expresses, many ATCKs have successfully found their way through the morass of conflicting cultures and lifestyles, come to terms with the inherent losses, and developed a positive sense of identity. They have learned to use their heritage in personally and/or professionally productive ways.

  Unfortunately, we have also met many ATCKs who continue to be so confused or wounded by the challenges of their childhood that they’ve never been free as adults to celebrate the benefits. Depression, isolation, loneliness, anger, rebellion, and despair have ruled their lives instead of joy. Some ATCKs may outwardly continue to be successful chameleons, but inwardly the questions “Who am I?” “Where am I from?” and “Why can’t I seem to move on in life?” still rage. They can’t figure out why they’ve always felt different from their peers.

  Other ATCKs believe they’re just fine, but spouses, children, friends, and coworkers know better. There is a shell around them that no one can penetrate— even in the closest of relationships. Some of them grew up in organizational systems where extended periods of separation from their family seemed so normal at the time that they never considered how these separations might have affected their lives. Others went through periods of war or conflicts in their host country with or without their parents being present. TCKs have experienced emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual abuse, or at least trauma, as they have traversed their worlds, but because these worlds vanished with one plane ride, they have never been able to sort things out—the experiences and their contexts simply disappeared. Often ATCKs are stuck in one of the stages of unresolved grief without realizing it. All they know is that they are trapped in some place or behavior from which they can’t break free.

  So what can they do now? Is it too late for wounded ATCKs to put the pieces together? When they have been stuck for a long time in a self-destructive lifestyle, is it possible for them to learn to use their past constructively rather than be bound by it? The answer is, simply, yes. It’s never too late to deal with unresolved grief, identity issues, or other challenges related to the TCK lifestyle.

  But how does healing occur? Obviously, ATCKs and their parents can’t go back and relive their transitional experiences or undo the separations. The years of family life lost are irretrievable. In fact, most ATCKs can’t recover any of their hidden losses. They can’t reclaim the sights, sounds, or smells that made home “home” as a child. They can’t stop the war that displaced them or the abuser who stole their innocence. What they can do, however, is learn to put words to their past, name their experiences, validate the benefits as well as the losses, and ask for help from their families and others. They can learn to name the gifts they have been given and are often unconsciously using productively in one way or another. One ATCK wondered why she had always felt drawn to work with the homeless when her family had often lived in beautiful homes around the world. As she understood her own story better, she could continue her work in ways she hadn’t considered before.

  What ATCKS Can Do

  NAME THEMSELVES AND THEIR EXPERIENCE

  For many ATCKs, simply putting a name to their past—”I grew up as a third culture kid”—opens a new perspective on life. Discovering there are legitimate reasons for their life experiences and the resulting feelings not only helps them understand themselves better, it also normalizes the experience. Some who have spent a lifetime thinking they’re alone in their differentness or wondering “What’s wrong with me?” discover they have lived a normal life after all—at least normal for a TCK.

  Somehow the concept of normality is very liberating. It doesn’t solve every problem, but it gives permission for a lot of self-discovery and frees ATCKs to make some changes they may not have thought possible. For example, rather than remaining eternal chameleons and continuing to try fitting in everywhere, they can focus on examining who they are, where they do fit, and where they can best use their gifts. If ATCKs can understand such questions as why they chronically withdraw before saying good-bye to others, they can purposefully choose to stay engaged in relationships until the end.

  Since one ATCK discovered withdrawal was her consistent pattern before moving, she now tells her friends a month before the departure date, “I want to let you know what a great friend you’ve been, because I might not be able to tell you at the end. I Also need to tell you that I’ve hurt a lot of people by acting like I don’t care when it comes time to say good-bye. I’m going to try not to do that, but if I start to withdraw, you let me know.” And her friends do.

  This simple acknowledgment both helps others understand this ATCK’s potential behavior and helps her remain emotionally present in relationships both before and after she leaves.

  For other ATCKs, discovering they have a name—that they are adult third culture kids—and are members of a group whose membership extends around the world finally gives them a feeling of belonging. Instead of feeling their history is a piece of life’s puzzle that will never fit, they now see it as the key piece around which so many others fall into place.

  NAME THEIR BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS

  Once ATCKs realize their past has undoubtedly influenced their present life and their choices, it’s time for them to make an honest assessment. Are there certain lifelong, repetitive behaviors (such as chronic moving or failure to allow intimacy in one relationship after another) that the
y have always excused as “That’s just the way I am”? Is their anger, depression, or other behavior often out of proportion to its context?

  After looking at such repetitive cycles, ATCKs need to ask themselves some questions: Is this behavior related to a confusion of identities? Is it related to one of the expressions of unresolved grief? Is it totally unrelated to anything except a personal or family matter? If it seems to be a personal matter, how might the influences of cross-culturalism and high mobility have added to that stress?

  NAME THEIR FEARS

  Often a major barrier to healing is fear—fear of facing the pain, fear of taking a risk again, fear of rejection. This fear is hidden behind such statements as “I don’t see any reason to look back. Life is to be lived in a forward direction.” Or “That TCK stuff is bunk. I’m just me, and my life experiences have nothing to do with the way I am. I’d have been the same no matter where or when I grew up.”