Dealing with Third Culture Kids

Some time ago I wrote the post Counselors be curious about the upbringing of third culture kids. I received a comment from Elfie and she wrote about her experiences with therapists: Counseling a TCK. Of all the therapists she had there was not one who knew the term "third culture kids". It's sad that therapists do not know what kind of challenges we face. Luckily there are some that do know! There is an International Therapist Directory. Maybe that can help.

On the Children's Mental Health Network website I came across an interesting article The Trouble with Third Culture Kids. Here's part of what it said:

"Rebecca Grappo, an educational consultant who specializes in the placement of these children, says there are three basic things all children need:  belonging, recognition and connection.  For TCKs, these basic needs are ripped away with each move.  Powerless in the decision to relocate, their many losses are often not acknowledged even by their own parents, and the main problem is unspoken, unrecognized, shunted aside.

It looks like depression, but it’s not.  This is the face of TCK grief.

And, according to Ruth Van Reken, unresolved grief is the most urgent mental health issue facing TCKs -- the children as well as the adults they will become."

So there are many losses that third culture kids go through. There's grief. There's something that looks like depression. Maybe sometimes it is a depression. There's a good article on Denizen "Dealing with depression as a TCK student". The article includes 5 tips on how to stay mentally healthy as a TCK when you are feeling challenged.

This week I read a post by a third culture kid called Hippie in Bloom. A friend of hers who also grew up making international moves as a child wrote: “I don’t like it much. Life would’ve been much easier if I were one of those people who never left the country and didn’t care about stuff.” 

The problem is that we can not change the past, so we need to find a way to deal with it. I think that's one of the challenges that we, (adult) third culture kids have to face.

Related posts:

• New mentoring program for expat teens
• Third Culture Kids going to university
• The Most difficult transition for third culture kids
• I'm all the places in which I have left my heart

Image thanks to grietgriet at Morgue File

Libby Purves: An Adult Third Culture Kid?

A while ago I discovered that Colin Firth, the actor in the film King's Speech was a third culture kid. He grew up in Nigeria, the United States and England. I like reading stories of the lived of people who grew up abroad just like I did. Today I read an article in the Dutch newspaper the NRC about Libby Purves. I am always really interested when I discover that someone was a third culture kid too. As a diploma's daughter Libby grew up in Israel, Bangkok, South Africa, France and England.

I am impressed by all the different things Libby Purves does or has accomplished. Here I name a few:

1. She won a scholarship to St. Anne's College in Oxford.
2. She presents the program Midweek on BBC radio 4. In 1978 she became the youngest ever presenter of radio 4s Today programme.
3. She writes a column for The Times newspaper.
4. She has written a series of books on childcare. Her books on childcare and family life have been translated into eleven languages worldwide. Like the Spanish book "Cómo no ser una madre perfecta".
5. She has written eleven novels including Mother Country, and a travel book, One Summer's Grace, about a 1,700-mile sailing journey round Britain with children aged three and five. Here's a list of more books she has written.

I discovered that Libby has written a Personal Memoir called "Holy Smoke: Religion and Roots". 

This is the book description on Amazon:  
'Middle Age' writes Libby Purves 'is a fine high vantage point for looking back. The official passing of another thousand years away from Bethlehem is a stimulus to thinking about Christianity'. In this fascinating and very personal book she does both: recalling her childhood in convents around the world with stories of nuns amid the gilded temples of Bangkok, rations of beer for nine-year-olds after High Mass in France and convent life in South Africa at the height of apartheid. As adults many Catholic girls of this generation gave up on religion, embracing agnosticism and the Pill with equal enthusiasm. The author describes Oxford in the late '60s, political idealism and religious disillusion; and traces the encounters that have shaped her thinking, and how, ironically, the scandals in the Church brought her closer to her childhood faith.
This sounds like an interesting book. Has anyone read this personal memoir? 

I was surprised to discover that Libby Purves has battled with depression all her life. After her son committed suicide she wrote a novel on bereavement Shadow Child."There is no solution to grief".

Here are some general characteristics on third culture kids: education and career as found on Wikipedia. These statistics are for U.S. TCKs:

• TCKs are 4 times as likely as non-TCKs to earn a bachelor's degree (81% vs 21%)^[27]
• 40% earn an advanced degree (as compared to 5% of the non-TCK population.)^[21]
• 45% of TCKs attended three universities before attaining a degree.^[21]
• 44% earned undergraduate degree after the age of 22.^[21]
• Education, medicine, business management, self-employment, and highly-skilled positions are the most common professions for TCKs.^[21]
• TCKs are unlikely to work for big business, government, or follow their parents' career choices. "One won't find many TCKs in large corporations. Nor are there many in government ... they have not followed in parental footsteps".^[21]

^{The reason that I have added the statistics is because I am so impressed by all the different things Libby Puves has accomplished. It sounds like she is an ambitious and highly skilled person. I have read that many adult third culture kids are highly ambitious. Libby has had to battle depression all her life, it makes me wonder whether that has anything to do with her growing up as a third culture kid? I don't know, but it does make me wonder.}

Are you a highly ambitious adult third culture kid? Have you had to battle depression? Do you think it helps adult third culture kids to write about their youth?

Related posts:

• A Third Culture Kid Speaking: I'm not from Anywhere
• Cultural Identity Confusion and Third Culture Kids
• Who Am I? A Guest Poem by Third Culture Kid Marina Sofia
• Third Culture Kids Do you Dare To Be Green?

New mentoring program for expat teens!

Recently I wrote about how important it is that counselors are curious and interested in a third culture kid's story. The great thing about blogging is that I get to meet new people online. I appreciate every comment that is left on my blog. Thank you so much. So that's how I met Ellen. She left a comment on the post I just mentioned. She wrote about a new online mentoring program for expat teens, called Sea Change Mentoring. As curious as I am, I had to know more about this. I am glad Ellen agreed to answer my questions. If you have more questions you can add them in the comments and hopefully Ellen can answer those too. Ellen grew up abroad too, just like I did!

1. Can you tell us about Sea Change, your online mentoring program for expat teens?

Sea Change Mentoring helps expat youth prepare for going back to their home countries, minimize reverse culture shock and maximize the benefits of having lived abroad. We do this by connecting high school students with mentors who grew up as expats and who went through this re-entry process successfully. With the help of our tailored curriculum, and by connecting online on a weekly basis, mentors ensure their proteges persist in college and lead healthy, independent lives.

2. What made you realize that there is a need for online mentoring?

I'm being heard!

My work at iMentor allowed me to observe firsthand how online mentoring changed the lives of thousands of young people in New York City. iMentor is one of the leading e-mentoring programs in the US. I worked for them for 5 years developing their volunteer management program, trainings thousands of mentors and ensuring the organization used the evidence and best practices in the field. 

After the 2011 earthquake in Japan, I realized that it was time for me to give back to my own community, the TCK community, by bringing mentoring to the lives of young people living abroad. I grew up as a TCK in Japan and Singapore and know firsthand what the benefits are of living abroad and what the risks can be of going “home.” According to the research that’s out there and our own survey results, the majority of TCK’s want (or wished they had) someone from the expat community to guide them through the process of adjusting to their home country. Mentoring is focused on letting the power of a structured relationship with a caring and safe adult be a guiding force in helping a young person live a well adjusted life. In my opinion, mentoring is perfectly suited to help young people living abroad.

3. How do you mentor the expat teens? Our mentors work with expat teens while they still live abroad. They are matched through the teen’s first year in their home country. Mentors and these proteges meet weekly via videochat technology. Together they create goals that they would like to achieve together within the structure of our curriculum. Mentors use the curriculum to guide teens through processing their expat experiences, managing their expectations of what coming home means and building coping skills that will help them minimize reverse culture shock. We cover topics like relationship building, pop culture and life skills (like getting a driver’s license and understanding how to use their country’s banking system).

4. Can you tell us something about your mentors? In what countries do they live? How many do you have? This organization is in its start-up phase and will launch our first program year in January, 2013.  We expect to work with over 50 mentors during this pilot year. The majority of the mentors will have US passports, necessary for screening purposes, but they may live anywhere in the world. All of our mentors are Adult Third Culture Kids and are carefully screened and trained. We pay them an hourly wage as a way to thank them for giving back to the community. So far the mentors we have recruited have lived in various countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.

5. You have started mentoring recently, how many expat teens have you mentored so far? Again, this organization is in its start-up phase and will launch our first program year in January, 2013.  We expect to work with between 50 and 100 teens during our pilot year. So far, the response from families and schools across the globe reaffirms the need for this type of service.

6. What kind of problems do the teens experience when returning to their "home" country? As some of the research suggests and as our recent survey of over 200 Adult TCKs exposed, many kids experience depression, anxiety, feelings of restlessness and difficulty relating to peers.  A lot of this has to with unresolved grief. Ruth Van Reken goes into this in detail in her book Third Culture Kids.

7. What advice do you have for parents when they prepare their kids for re-entry into their passport country? In our recent survey we completed of over 200 Adult TCKs, parents came up a lot. The good news is that TCK’s that had an easier time adjusting to their home country had supportive parents that were present and educated about reverse culture shock. It helps when parents “go home” at the same time as the child, if they return to an area that the child is familiar with and if they attend the same university as their siblings. For Adult TCK’s that had a difficult time, many of them reported that they had wished their parents had been more empathetic. Also, many Adult TCK’s spoke about needing more help from parents on particular “life skills,” such as learning how to drive or how to use their home country’s banking system.

8. What advice would you give teens returning to their "home" country? Dr. Nan Sussman has done some great research on this topic and a lot of our curriculum reflects her suggestions. In her article, “Sojourners to AnotherCountry: the Psychological Roller-Coaster of Cultural Transitions,” she stresses the importance of psychologically preparing for their return home, understanding that feeling distressed once they have moved back home is normal and to find like-minded individuals to help ease the transition. In fact, we have found that teens that join international clubs or communities or that move to urban centers with diverse populations fare better. Many teens do well if they get involved or stay involved in sports once they return to their home country. Finally, just keeping a positive attitude about the transition can make a huge difference.  As one respondent from our survey said “While I was nervous and scared it was also this great new adventure where I was all on my own and I could either make the most of it or hit rock bottom.”

9. Do you have any suggestions for useful resources (like books, websites etc) for expat parents or their children? The book “Third Culture Kids", the research done by Dr. Nan Sussman and the varied articles in Denizen Magazine are the first resources that come to mind.

10. Is there anything else that you could like to share with the readers? I want to stress that are so many positive things that we can get out of being TCKs. Dr. Sussman reports that living abroad can increase our cultural sensitivity, Ruth E. Van Reken talks about how TCK’s have an expanded worldview. Our survey brought up some really interesting benefits of being TCKs. The one I think is most interesting, that a number of ATCKs wrote about, was the increased ability to think and express oneself creatively. With all the body language deciphering, interpreting and listening we have to do as TCKs, this makes a lot sense to me. As someone that has been involved with hiring college graduates for years, I often look for these qualities in potential employees. So I want to acknowledge both the difficulty and the privileges and life lessons we experience as TCKs.

If your readers are interested in becoming mentors, signing up a teenager for the program or becoming a corporate partner they can contact me at Ellen@seachangementoring.com or visit our website. 

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Do you have suggestions for the mentoring program? Would you have liked to have a mentor on returning to your passport country? I would have! 

Related Posts:

• Dare to Be a Creative Third Culture Kid
• Children of the World: where are your roots?
• The Most Difficult Transition for Third Culture Kids
• My 10 disadvantages of growing up in another culture 

Image thanks to Mary R.Vogt at Morgue File