10 tips to help you prepare your child for an international move

Recently I read a post on Facebook. A mother was asking advice on how to prepare her daughter for a n upcoming move from England to the Netherlands. Her daughter is 5 years old and she had said to her mum "Please mum I don't want to leave my home and my school". I am sure her child is not the only one that does not want to move.

The question made me think. What would my advice be? As a child I moved many times in Africa, I

photo by Kelly Morguefiles

wonder how my parents prepared us, there were four of us, I have two brothers and a sister. These days there are so many more resources, we have books, the internet, social media to seek advice. I do think this is a great question because I firmly believe parents can help and prepare their children for an international move.

My 10 tips would be:

1. Acknowledge your child's emotions. Give her permission to feel sad about the move and about saying goodbye. Give her permission to identify and express her emotions. You can help her by saying "I see that you are sad about leaving your friends". If you want to read more on this topic the Centre on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning have practical suggestions here in this download Teaching Your Child To: Identify and Express Emotions.
2. Watch the Disney movie "Inside Out" together. The girl named Riley makes a move too and finds it tough. Watch it together and take time to talk about it. The movie is all about emotions.
3. Make the move an adventure. When the moving boxes arrive let her paint one or decorate it by using stickers, glue, paint, and pretty pictures. She can even decorate the box with a friend (you then include her friends in the process, so they can get used to the idea that she will move).
4. As part of the adventure search for information about the city and country you will move to. Show photos or a youtube film. If possible make a preliminary visit to the new country. Be careful not to raise the expectations too high.
5. Let her help pack the boxes. Let her help you sort out which toys she will take along. Let her put her most important toys in the decorated moving box. By letting her make choices you give her some control in a time that many things are "out of her control". You are giving her some influence in this situation.
6. Maintain stability. In the crazy time before, during and after the move try to stick to family routines. For a child this means that even though many things are changing there are still constants in her life and that can give a child stability and a sense of security.
7. Make a countdown calendar together to help vizualize how many nights until the move. Suggestions for a creative and fun countdown calendar can be found here. The concept of time, and knowing when the move will take place can be difficult for children. A countdown calendar can help your child understand how many "sleeps" until the move.
8. Help your child say her good-byes. David Pollock and Ruth van Reken talk about it in their book "Third Culture Kids, Growing up Among Worlds". They mention the need for saying good-bye to people, places, pets and possessions. Plan a farewell party for her friends, make the invitations together. Visit special places as a family. Ask her what she would like to do one last last time. Eat and ice cream in the favourite ice cream parlour or swim in a certain swimming pool. Make photos of these last visits. If there is a pet will the pet come along or will someone care for the pet? Maybe possessions will be let behind. Help her accept that some possessions will remain behind, maybe you will give some things to other people, involve your daughter in the process. You could give her a small treasure box in which she can put special treasures, it could be a small stone from you garden or something else special.
9. Consider buying her a copy of the book My Moving Booklet by Valerie Besanceney. The booklet has been designed to help children through the initial stages of an upcoming move.
10. Make a small photo album specially for her with photos of the friends she will leave behind, of the farewell party, of the special places, of house you lived in and lots more. This photo book can be a tool she can use to show and tell others where she used to live.

If you don't have enough time to make a calendar, make invitations for a farewell party, make the photo album then get other people involved in your move. Your friends probably want to help you, try to delegate something. Ask another mum to help you, she will probably feel privileged!\

There are many more things parents do to help their kids, I would love to hear your suggestions. Please share them here. Thank you so much.

Related Posts:

• Providing children with tools to tell their story
• The book: Emotional Resilience and the Expat Child by Julia Simens
• My 10 advantages of growing up overseas
• Grandparenting over the seas by Libby Stephens

Giving Third Culture Kids A Voice

Recently I had the privilege of meeting Eva László-Hertbert. I am glad she agreed to answer some questions about a great project that she is doing together with Jo Parfitt. Third culture kids this is your opportunity to be creative and to let your voice be heard. The project is called The Worlds Within TCK Anthology. The deadline for submissions has been postponed to the 30th of October 2013, so you can still send in

submissions.

These words by Eva jumped out at me:

"I am hugely excited about this project and want to shout it out to all four corners of the world:  hello, young and beautiful people, this is your moment to tell the world what it is like to be born in Dubai, have grandparents in Leicestershire, Skype with a best friend in Poland and still miss life in Argentina." 

How was the idea for the book born?

Home is where the sunflower grows

The idea for the upcoming anthology of TCK writing “ The Worlds Within “ was forged following the 2012 FIGT  – Families in Global Transition – conference in Washington DC, USA. I was invited to be the closing key note speaker and Jo was launching her book and leading workshops on writing your life story.

Founded in 1998 at the kitchen table of Ruth van Reken (co-author of Third Culture Kids–Growing Up Among Worlds), FIGT is both the mother hen and the flagship of all writing, research and publishing on TCK/ ATCK matters, connecting brilliant minds who speak and dream in many tongues all across the globe.

To me, sharing my views on identity vs nationality with 200 strangers who I had come to deeply feel connected to in less than 72 hours was a life changing event. It was for the first time ever that all the many pieces of my “weird” biography were being voiced and brought together – and no one told me off for being weird, strange, too complicated or simply unreal. These people were genuinely curious and they kept nodding – and then had equally incredible stories to share themselves. Which they did until the wee hours of the morning.

Questions that had put my life on hold for so many years – who am I, where do I really belong to, and so many more – suddenly found an answer and were put into the right context and perspective. Words fail to describe the effect this had on my outlook on myself and the many worlds I am living in… on Facebook this would translate into OMG !! WOW !! and a lot of L J.

My definition of home is: home is where you don’t need to explain yourself.

Well, in March 2012, at FIGT – please immerse yourself into www.FIGT.org -  me, myself and I arrived home. HOME! After returning to The Hague, my eureka moment and Jo’s expert and compassionate guidance led to the idea of giving other TCKs and ATCKs a voice of their own, to be compiled into an anthology of original writing.  A lot has been written about TCKs / ATCKs and related issues – we felt that the time for showcasing the practice in genuine TCK/ATCK words and art was ripe. 

Is it correct that art and writing can be submitted?

To be part of The Worlds Within: Write as much as a short story or as little as a haiku – you may use up to 2000 words; draw, paint, make a collage – whatever.

The deadline for submissions is 30 October 2013.

Submissions can be sent to TCKTheWorldsWithin@gmail.com, in Times New Roman 12 font, formatted in indented paragraphs. Artwork will be published in black and white and must be submitted in the highest possible resolution.

Authors, aged 0-27, have the explicit right to remain anonymous or submit their work using a nom-de-plume.

Minimum requirements that need to accompany submissions: a name, the age when the submitted work was created, countries the author has lived in and a three word motto, which is relevant to their life (mine, for example is: connect – contribute – celebrate). If desired, they may add any information – website, blog, email, twitter – by which their art / writing can be followed.

The texts – up to 100 – will be organized by age.

Yes, we do accept submissions of group effort – what a great idea!

For all further questions please email us TCKTheWorldsWithin@gmail.com, like us on www.facebook.com/TheWorldsWithin and – very important – keep writing!

And, last but not least: please be our ambassador. Tell your siblings, cousins, friends, colleagues and class mates about this chance to tell the world what it feels like to be the genuine, unique and complex YOU.

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Thank you Eva. I hope there will be many submissions because children who grow up in other cultures are very creative. Even adult third culture kids can send in submissions. Please spread the word around. I just love the idea of a book with works by third culture kids. What are your thoughts on this? I would love some comments. Just to let you know that I read each comment.

Related Posts:

• Guestblog: An Ode To Third Culture Kids
• TCK speaking: "I'm not from Anywhere"
• Guestpost: Who am I?
• SeaChangeMentoring Events October 2013 Den Haag (SeaChangeMentoring Website)

Third Culture Kids, Blogging, Books and More

I always love reading other blogs and especially when they are written by someone who grew up abroad. I want to share a few blogs that I have been reading the past few weeks. I like Susanne's blog. She was born in Bruges, Belgium, lived in Poland, Japan and America. Susanne writes:

"Moving around for me, at the time, was just a part of life."

"When we moved back to the Netherlands, my past became a burden."

She writes about what it is like to be a third culture kid, read her story here. Growing up in Poland there was a time when Susanne spoke Polish fluently. To her regret she does not speak Polish anymore. Do check her blog. Did your past ever become a burden for you?

I read an interesting article on The Benefits of Reading As a Third Culture Kid. Rowena is a third culture kid who lived in Blantyre, Malawi, just like I did. We "met" online by the way. She has a great love of books and reads many. Books had a stabilzing effect on her life while she made an international move as a pre-teen. Rowena says: 

"Books helped me learn more about my culture and my surroundings. I was supposed to know all about a culture I had never lived in, but I didn’t."

I must admit I love reading too. Sometimes I wonder if I read to be able to travel. So when I am actually not moving and travelling in real life, I can travel while I read stories about life abroad. Am I escaping real life too when I read books? I love having breakfast and then getting back in to bed to read a good book, that's like heaven to me. It does not happen often but when it does it's pure enjoyment. 

Are you a third culture kid who loves reading? Why do you love reading? 

I want to keep you updated in how the blog is going. Well in July 2013 there were a record amount of pageviews. Thank you for stopping by and reading this blog. I have not been blogging very frequently but behind the scenes I am trying to write a book, I had a holiday in Belgium and France, I try to spend time with the family and read some books too. I will be reviewing "The Stress-Free Guide to Studying in The States" by Toni Summers Hargis soon. The book is on my bedside table at the moment. 

Books I recently received & want to read!

I did a skype interview this week with Emma, she is a university student studying anthropology in England. She interviewed me for her research on third culture kids. I am so glad that there is ongoing research on what it is like to grow up in other cultures. I also want to let you know that I have added a link on this blog to YouthCompass. They are an organisation that have been working with TCKs since 2001. I hope to post an interview all about YouthCompass in the future. I must admit that I had never heard of YouthCompass.

Have you read any interesting third culture kid blogs recently?

Related Posts:

• Book Review: Slurping Soup and Other Confusions
• My Story & 10 Tips Transitioning Globally to University (on Djibouti Jones)
• Interview with Toni Summers Hargis about her new book The Stress-Free Guide to Studying in The States (JoParfitt website)
• Summer vacations at Grandma's House by Julia Munroe Martin (Millivers Travels)

The Winner is...Someone who is Raising Third Culture Kids!

Last but not least! MaDonna who writes the blog Raising TCKs has won the giveaway, a signed copy of the book Expat Life Slice by Slice to celebrate my blog's second anniversary. She was the last person to post a comment on the great interview with the Telegraph blogger and author of the book Apple Gidley. Apple grew up abroad and has kept moving since. If you missed the interview do check it out because it is worth reading. I enjoyed it and did you know Apple even lived in Emmen, the Netherlands for some time?

I like her closing words: "I think amidst all the chaos of packing and adjustments, particularly at this time of year when people are on the move again, it’s important to remember the chaos will dissipate, the groans of reluctant children will lessen and we will find a friend with whom to share coffee or wine."  

Let's take those words to heart especially during a time of change. Even during a storm, a time will come when the storm has passed and all is at rest again. Peace has returned.

There is a favourite little verse of mine. I learned it in Africa and it has stayed with me since. It's comforting:

A cup of coffee in Gent, Belgium recently @DrieCulturen

Life is a mixture of sunshine and rain
teardrops and laughter
pleasure and pain
We can't have all bright days,
but is is certainly true:
There was never a cloud the sun did not shine through!

I want to congratulate MaDonna on winning the book. I hope she finds some time to a read and enjoy the book. MaDonna lives in Asia, she calls her family a fusion family. One of her TCKs is a special needs child and with lots of wisdom MaDonna writes about her experiences. Like the post on An Expat Special Needs TCK Parent. Her most recent post is: Expat Special Needs Parent: Marriage Homework. 
She's on twitter too @mdmaurer.

By the way how do you survive a storm in your life? Any tips?

Interesting Links:

• Sharing a secret on raising resilient kids
• Third Culture Kid series: Painting Pictures (Djiboutijones)
• Interview with Heidi Dans-Hart author of Home Keeps Moving
• Make Sure to Say Good-Bye (RaisingTCKs) 

Time to look back and to look ahead here at DrieCulturen

"Like flying blogging is an adventure" photo by DrieCulturen

Two years ago I started my blog. Now it's time to look back and share some of the progress I have made. It has been an exciting adventure writing this blog. I've written nearly 200 posts, received many comments thanks to you, my readers. I have received personal emails and I've been on the national radio in the Netherlands speaking about my youth abroad and explaining what third culture kids are.

So what do people read here?

My 5 Best Read Posts:

1. Top countries for raising kids abroad in 2012 Read more than 2000 times
2. Top countries for raising kids abroad in 2011
3. Cultural Identity Confusion and Third Culture Kids
4. Interview with Graphic Design Student Jessica on Third Culture Kid Book Project
5. My 10 Disadvantages of growing up abroad

Most of my pageviews come from:

1. The USA more than 19 thousand pageviews
2. The Netherlands more than 15 thousand pageviews
3. Russia
4. United Kingdom
5. Germany

I would like to know which post you most enjoyed? Which was most informative or do you still remember? Is there a topic you want to hear more of? Please let me know by leaving a comment. By the way I have a surprise coming up, I hope to have a giveaway on the blog some time soon, I hope this week. So do come back and check the blog again.

I enjoyed writing the post "I'm from....and you?".On my first blog anniversary I interviewed Heidi Sand-Hart author of the book "Home Keeps Moving". I love interviewing authors because it inspires me, remember I have this dream to write a book one day! I wrote about my dream in the post Breaking the Silence. A recent post with quite a few comments was my post on is there a difference between adults and kids living abroad?
So what comes next? The interesting thing about blogging is that I often do not know what the next post will be about. I hope future posts will be informative, useful and inspiring for you. I am adding some interesting links here for you. See you next time!

Related Posts:
I won the Versatile Blogger Award 
Blogging: What's the Point? (JoParfitt.com)
How to make your blogging dreams come true (Problogger)
23 Questions for Prospective Bloggers (Problogger) 

Time for Something New....

Growing up abroad my life changed drastically every 2 to 3 years. Major change was part of my life every few years. It would mean moving house, leaving friends, packing and starting all over again. In between these major moves there would be times of change too, when other families left and went back "home" or on to their next move. Life for me meant change and new things.

Now my life changes a lot less often. I have been living in the same town for quite some years now but there is still that yearning for change and for doing something new or learning something new. At the moment I am changing my day job, I will write more about that in another post. Due to the job change I have less time and energy to write on my blog. I hope I will be able to write more posts this month!

I have started doing something new and I wanted to share that with you. I am following my first MOOC! Have you heard of MOOCs or do you have experience with MOOCs? I would love to hear about it.

So what's a MOOC? Well a few months ago I had not heard of them. "A massive open online course (MOOC) is an online course aimed at large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that help build a community for the students and professors". Wikipedia.

I am following a MOOC offered by edX.org. You can see which courses are offered by edX.org here. Interesting courses that are coming up are: Health and Society, Globilization's Winners and Losers: Challenges for Developed and Developing Countries, Solar Energy (by TU Delft, a Dutch University), and the Age of Globilization.

The MOOC I am following is Human Health and Global Environmental Change. It is taught by lecturers from the Harvard School of Public Health and I am very enthusiast about the course. Maybe I will write more about it at a later stage. The great thing is that you can watch the lectures whenever it is convenient for you. You can try to get the certificate but you do not have to.

I am still hoping to find a MOOC on third culture kids. If you come across one please let me know!

I think that MOOCs are great possibilities for global learning. All you need is:

1. A desire to learn
2. Find a topic that interests you
3. Have a computer and an internet connection
4. Find some time to watch the lectures and answer the questions etc. You can watch it in your own time zone, wherever you are on the globe.

So whether you live in Andorra or Zimbabwe there are new learning possibilities for you. Even for expats wherever you live these are new interesting opportunities. I mentioned edX but there are two other websites that offer MOOC's: Coursera and Udacity. Coursera has about 3,5 million students registered who are taking courses. More recently OpenupEd has been launched, it is a European initiative supported by the European Commission. There are about 40 courses available in 12 different languages.

Related posts:

• More information on MOOC's (USNews.com/education) 
• Bumpy Start For Pan European MOOCs (Scienceguide.nl) 
• Bilingualism and Growing up Abroad
• Nieuwe Dingen Doen
• Third Culture Kids Learning Their Mother Tongue  

Is There a Difference Between Adults and Kids Living Abroad?

Someone wrote to me this week that there is no difference between adults and children living abroad in different cultures. I am sorry but I cannot agree with this statement because it just is not true. There are many things that are the same:

1. Both adults and children can experience a culture shock on transitioning to a new country.
2. Both can struggle to learn the new language. Usually the kids win this one!
3. Both need to discover what the rules and customs are in a country. The kids usually adapt quicker than the adults.

Madurodam, in the Netherlands

The difference is that the adults have formed their identity before moving to the new country. The child is still is still in the process of forming his or her identity. So the key word here is: identity. In my latest post I wrote about identity. Culture is linked to identity. Once you do know how a culture works it gives us a sense of belonging, identity and confidence. The problem with third culture kids is that they might think they know the culture and then suddenly they move to a new country and the culture is different. Our family, our community and the place we live in serve as mirrors to us. A child forms their own identity by using these mirrors. When the mirrors change the identity formation is much more of a challenge. This is the crucial difference between adults and children living and moving abroad.

I believe there are things that parents can do to help kids form their identity and to help third culture kids feel less of a victim of their circumstances. In the end no one grows up in perfect conditions. Maybe I will write about this in the future.

10 Things parents can do to help their children form their identity and thrive while growing up abroad:

1. Regularly return to the passport country, for me that was the Netherlands.
2. If possible return to the same place for a period of time in the passport country. We usually spent part of our leave on the family farm in Friesland, in the north of the Netherlands. It helps kids bond with that place. Julia Munroe Martin writes about where she spent her summer vacations. "I had no place to call home. The closest I ever felt to home was with my grandmother at her house in Poland, Ohio, on the banks of Yellow Creek."
3. Tell stories about your heritage. Tell stories about the grandparents. Research shows that children who know more about their family background are more resilient. Here's an article about it in the New York Times.
4. Teach children their mother tongue. Speak it to them and encourage them to speak it. There is an interesting link between language and identity!
5. Help the children to be in contact with their family abroad. Here are some great suggestions by Libby Stephens on grandparenting over the seas.
6. Have your own family traditions. Develop your own way of celebrating birthdays or special days. While I grew up in Africa we celebrated Sinterklaas every year.
7. Encourage children to have a treasure box, with special small items from the countries they have lived in.
8. Help children say goodbye well when they leave a country, so that they can start anew in a healthy way.
9. Help children when they transition back to their passport country. If possible let them have their own debriefing*. The transition back is very challenging.
10. If children are transitioning back for college or university you can consider getting a mentor to mentor them during the transition period. There is a new mentoring program for expat teens done by Sea Change Mentoring.

Do you have any suggestions how we can help our kids? Do you agree that there is a difference between adults and children living and moving abroad?

* Debriefing is telling our story, complete with experiences and feelings, from our point of view. It is a verbal processing of past events. Debriefing includes both facts and emotional responses, and invites feedback.

Related posts:
Third culture kids self-identity books
Sharing our Roots Interview (on Life with a Double Buggy)
Learning to Grieve well (on Communicating across Boundaries)
The discomfort of re-entry back home (on Sara Taber's blog)

Reporting from EuroTCK in Germany

I am very privileged to be able to attend the Euro TCK conference in Germany at the moment. I will try and share some of the information I am hearing here. I have never been in a place where there are so many people interested in third culture kids and so many workshops about all kinds of topics related to third culture kids. To my delight the main speaker is Ruth van Reken, she is the co-author together with D.Pollock of the book "Third Culture Kids, Growing Up Among Worlds".

This morning Ruth talked about Living with change. One of the things her father always said was "unpack your bags and plant your trees". So make Sure you fully start living in the new place or country you have moved to.

We heard about how we learn about culture.


1. We learn the rules as children.
2. We test the rules as adolescents.
3. We internalize and operate the rules as adults.

As we grow up we learn about culture. Our family, our community and the place we live in serve as mirrors to us. A child form's their own identity by using these mirrors. What happens when children grow up internationally in many different places and countries is that these mirrors keep changing which makes it more complicated to form the own identity.

Once you do know how a culture works it gives us a sense of belonging, identity and confidence. We know how it works!

Ruth mentioned that there are 3 different ways children react when they enter a new culture.

1. The chameleon: tries to find "same as" identity.

Ruth van Reken at Eurotck 2013

2. The screamer: tries to find a "different from" identity.
3. The wallflower: tries to find the "non-identity", to be invisible.

We had a discussion during our session and some adult third culture kids said sometimes they were a chameleon but at other times they really wanted to be different and they acted more as the "screamer".

Tomorrow Ruth van Reken is speaking about growing through change.

Related Posts:
Guestblog an Ode to Third Culture Kids by Casey
I am from ....and where are you from?
An interview with graphic design student Jessica on her third culture kid book project

Just the Right Book if You are Dreaming of a Portable Career

"Harness the winds of change for yourself and use them to sail to your next career destination".

This is just one of the great quotes in the 4th edition of A Career in Your Suitcase by Jo Parfitt and Colleen Reichrath-Smith. I am interested in this book even though I am not a trailing spouse but I am an adult third culture kid. I grew up moving around the globe and one of my dreams is to one day have a portable career. A career that I can just take with me when I move to the other side of the world for a couple of months or for longer. As it happens I am making a career change at the moment which is why I really enjoyed the book.

A portable career is work that you can take with you wherever you go. A portable career is based on who you are, your passion, your unique gifts and ability. It's the expression of yourself in your work.

The first couple of chapters are about finding your direction. What is your passion? The second part of the book helps you see your opportunity. The book is full of tips, inspiring quotes, exercises, resources and websites. The third part of the book puts it all together and adds practical information about working for yourself.

The book is inspiring and gives you lots of food for thought and for action of course. Something that struck me was the importance of connecting with other people. Barbara Sher, bestselling author of "I Could Do Anything If Only I Knew What it Was", advises, "Failure to achieve our career ambitions does not result from a lousy attitude; rather from isolation." There are many examples in the book of expat wives that connect with others abroad and discover their passions. Jo Parfitt tells her story of how she wrote a cookbook called Dates in Oman and became a successful journalist in Dubai. Now she runs Summertime Publishing.

Colleen Reichrath-Smith made an international move from Canada to the Netherlands for love. She shares her personal story and the challenges she faced on this journey like having to get her driving license in the Netherlands. Colleen has years of experience working in the career field.

The winds of change are blowing over this globe. In this time of globalization many people are making international moves and I honestly believe that the number of people with a portable career will increase. This book is worth reading because it's a great tool that will help you discover your skills and how you can use them to reach your goal. By the way it's very important to write down your goals. You should have a mission statement, there's more about that in the book. You will be put to work but it's worth it in the end. 

This is what Ruth van Reken, Co-author of Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing up Among Worlds, Co-founder of Families in Global Transition says about the book.  

"Through her Career In Your Suitcase program, Jo Parfitt helps people everywhere think outside of their traditional boxes. She not only teaches but models how each of us can make all the pieces of our lives work together to form something new and satisfying in the middle of a changing world. I recommend this book highly to all who want to learn how to begin seeing the possibilities of new beginnings they may not have recognised before."

For more information check the website Careerinyoursuitcase.com. You can follow @SuitcaseCareer on twitter. You can buy the book A Career in Your Suitcase here.

By the way if you buy A Career in Your Suitcase online from 12th - 16th May on Kindle it's free!

Interested in what others say about Career in Your Suitcase?

• Here's what Norman from the Expat Everyday Support Centre says.
• A review by Alison Day Designs

There's a webinar Create Your Portable Career by Colleen Reichrath-Smith on 23rd April 2013 2pm Sydney time.

Please share your experiences of your portable career if you have one.

Easter twitter update all about kids growing up in other cultures

My last twitter update was in March 2012 so it's time to keep you posted with some nice new links. I always hope that you find new interesting information here on this blog and that it motivates you to return again some time soon. If you follow me on twitter @DrieCulturen you will get the news faster of course. By the way it's colder here in the Netherlands than it was at Christmas last year. There was snow at Easter, so now I am dreaming of the warm sun in Indonesia.

Sharing 10 great links with you:

1. 10 Things Expats Raising Children in England should know by Bonnie Rose, who is an expat living in England, she grew up a third culture kid living on military bases.
2. New: third culture kids Linda and Cassandra tell about what it's like to grow up in Jakarta, Indonesia

   

   Dreaming of Indonesia and the warm sun

   “Lucky!”... http://bit.ly/XR1Tf7 "It is difficult being a third culture kid but we would not trade the life we have lived, as it is unique." 
3. 15 Things I want to tell my Third Culture Kids by Rachel Pieh Jones. A post written by an expat mum raising her kids abroad. This post has been shared many times on twitter since it was posted. It's worth reading.
4. Insightful article in the Copenhagen Post today about "Growing up half-Danish: A tale of Two Cultures" http://bit.ly/XmNETz 
5. Gr8 challenge by @expatyouth for expat kids betw13-18 yrs Make a video: How you will make a better world... http://t.co/ZHE2bhDHmv
6. Inspiring! Write your way to a happier & healthier you by @RawiaLiverpool http://t.co/JHQPXArX0Y Good idea for expats and TCKs
7. So true "when ripe you can smell it from a distance....guavas!" http://t.co/MM5i7bhBU9 Brings back memories of growing up in Africa
8. Where are you from? Third Culture Kids delve into complex answers at Clark University conference.. http://tinyurl.com/c3sboxp 
9. Knowing yr family narrative shown to be gr8 predictor of resilience. Super advice 4 our expat kids! http://tinyurl.com/d2jrqd3
10. Linda @in_expatland Attended Families in Global Transition conference & came away INSPIRED http://wp.me/p1iIk2-n3  Top 10 Reasons Why FIGT Rocked

Do you have any interesting links to share? Please add them. Just in case you did not read the guest blog by Casey then you should just read "An Ode to the Third Culture Kids". 

Photo by Janneke @DrieCulturen

Guestblog "An Ode to the Third Culture Kids" by Casey

Recently I discovered a very interesting blog called True Colours. It's a lovely blog written by Casey. She loves traveling and has beautiful photos on her blog, you should have a look. I just fell in love with her Ode to Third Culture Kids. I am so glad Casey agreed to let me share it with you here. It's over to Casey.

An Ode to the Third Culture Kids

If this title confuses you, just bear with me and I'll provide a background on what I'm talking about.  But to start, one of the things I hope to accomplish on this blog is to promote understanding & to negate ignorances.  I think in order to do that, we need to start with my backstory to understand where we're going with this today.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia.  

My home for all of my childhood, it was truly all I knew.  

It was home. 

So when it was time to leave, I left as a pre-teen child knowing that the goodbyes I was saying to my friends, my childhood home, the country I knew and loved, 

I knew I'd probably never see any of them again.

That day we left Saudi was heartbreaking, not just for me but for my parents too.  

I'll never forget the feeling that crept up on me that day, it truly changed my life.

From then on, the first couple years back in the States I had a really hard time. Not necessarily adjusting to life here or meeting new friends, but in the fact that I felt like a whole part of me was suddenly missing. Something I couldn't really explain to people that didn't understand.

For years, I HATED the question "where are you from?"  

I couldn't answer it without going into the whole story because I wasn't really "from" Saudi, 

but it had been my birthplace, my home.

And I wasn't "from" the States either, somehow that seemed far more foreign to me than saying I was from Saudi.  

And hence came many many years of not really feeling at home anywhere, never truly feeling like I was "home" in the States, nor that it was truly what defined my citizenship.

I had no one except my parents that understood this, though they also were in a different boat than me.  Their time in Saudi had been in adulthood, with many years in the States before that and so while they tried as hard as they could, it wasn't a feeling they could totally understand either.

Through my high school years the connection to my Saudi childhood friends over the internet helped tremendously.  At times when I'd really miss it, I'd talk to them.  I'd look at their photos of our old home and reminisce with them about when we were kids.  

Many of them I still am in contact with today.  

I apologize that this post is so winded, but here in lies the rub, this is the story of my life and it is winded.

I can't just say "I'm from Oregon" and be done with it.

Or "I'm American" and be done with it... because even though now both of those hold true,

they don't paint the whole picture, just a tiny part of it.

So anyways, in college I came across the term "3rd culture kid."

And it seriously changed my life.  This term describes kids like me, born and raised in a foreign country but a citizen of another and somewhere in between both of those, lies a 3rd culture we've sort of created for ourselves, a mixture of the 2 that we "belong" to.

To finally be able to see my situation written in a word, to finally be able to express what I had been feeling all those years in a way someone else might be able to understand. 

It was a huge revelation.

And then just the other day I came across this article talking about the exact same thing but relaying a single world for the feelings I've had for years.  "Saudade," a Portuguese word without an equivalent in English means "a longing, a melancholy, a desire for what was and something that really won't ever be again."

That word stopped me in my tracks the other day as I read the article (forwarded to me by a friend from Saudi).  That one word is one that I hold with me everyday in my heart and I've been holding it for a very long time now without even knowing the word that described it.

To really imagine the feeling, imagine the place you grew up, your house, your home, your friends, your family, your hobbies, your reality, gone in 1 day, knowing you'd never see it again. 

I guess my point in all this is that sometimes, as 3rd culture kids, no one understands why we feel this way.  People always tell me, "well you're American though, so I don't get it."

And I wish it were that simple but it is far from that.

While my passport has always been American, in large letters in the place of birth category is written

prominently "Saudi Arabia" and there is the story of my life.

Caught between 2 cultures that have never been truly mine, either one of them.

So now years down the road, I look back and can understand a little better what I went through and what I felt is felt by 3rd culture kids all around the world.  

And so here is my ode to the 3rd culture kids around the globe, may we find peace in who we are, where we come from and how the world has shaped us.  

And may others try to understand that it isn't so black and white for us, 

that sometimes cultures blur, boundaries are undefined.  

I think as a world we need to understand this more and as more and more lines do blur,

we must know that our hearts can hold pieces of our "homes," even if that home can't be 

drawn on a map.

I'll always be a little "Arab" and I'm so thankful for that because it's a huge part of who I am

and I hope it always will be.

Now when someone asks me where I'm from, I smile and respond

"I grew up in Saudi Arabia."

And then I wait for the questions that always seem to follow...

  Photo copyright Nick Nieto

Casey on twitter @cmart1015
Bloglovin' True Colours
Casey wrote another post recently: A Little bit of Background

Want to Know How to Prepare Third Culture Kid Teens for Adulthood?

Yes! I would love to know how to prepare third culture kid teens for adulthood. Well the expat parents living in the Netherlands have a great opportunity coming up. There are two workshops coming up this week on this topic. Ellen from Sea Change Mentoring is visiting the Netherlands and she will be conducting this workshop. I interviewed Ellen recently about her new mentoring program for expat teens. It's worth reading the interview.

The first workshop is Monday 11th March 2013 from 18.00 to 19.30 hrs in the American Book Center Treehouse in Amsterdam. You can register here.

The second workshop is on Tuesday 12th March 2013 18.00hrs to 19.30 hrs at the American school in Wassenaar. More information is available here.

During the workshop participants will:

• Learn the specific challenges and successes TCKs experience when transitioning to their passport culture, university and young adulthood
• Learn what reverse culture shock is and how TCK teens and young adults experience this
• Learn strategies to minimize the harmful symptoms of reverse culture shock
• Learn what skills and characteristics are specific to TCKs and how teens and young adults can make the most of these
• Learn how mentoring is an effective solution to helping TCKs through this transition and how Sea Change Mentoring works
• Network with other participants to help strengthen a supportive community around these matters
• Connect with a number of related resources 
  
  

Ellen says: "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." 

I hope to attend one of the workshops and I am willing make notes and share what I learn. What do you want to know? What's your experience? Do you have advice for other parents?

Related Posts:
Book review of the book Expat Teens Talk
The Most difficult transition for third culture kids  
A Third Culture Kid's Guide to college (DenizenMag)
Culture Shock: What Your Kids can't Tell You (Anne Gillme)
Third Culture Kid Book Project by Jessica Wen

Photo by Anita Peppers MorgueFile.

Breaking the Silence

This is only my second blog post in 2013. It has never been so quiet on my blog since I started it in June 2011. The reason is that I read an article Why Bloggers Fail and the article made me think. Derek Halpern says that "It turns out that most people who start blogs quit within the first 3 months." Well I am glad to say I survived the first 3 months! To tell you the truth this blog is nearly two years old.

So what made me think? He says most bloggers waste too much time creating new content. According to him "the secret lies in your ability to promote the content you already have". So I did a small experiment for a couple of weeks I did not create any new content and I just watched to see whether there were still people reading the blog. To my surprise there were still many people reading content, so that was a great discovery. The only thing I did notice was that there were nearly no new comments so that is a little sad. Maybe I should have done a little more to promote the content I already have.

I made another discovery during the time of silence on the blog. I discovered that when I was not in the routine of writing the blog it became more difficult to start writing on the blog again. It's a little like exercising when you are in the routine of going to the sports club twice a week it's easy to keep doing it but once you stop going it's harder to get the discipline and start going again.  

I have another dilemma. I have this dream that I want to write a book. I need to find or make some extra time somewhere. I have a job during the day and all my writing is done in the evenings or weekends. Maybe if I spend less time writing for my blog I will have more time to write my dream book. Do you have the same kind of problem? Do you have any tips?

By the way the dream book I want to write is about third culture kids. I need your help. What kind of book would you like to read on the topic? Do you have any thoughts, questions, or suggestions that could be useful for me? Please share them. What topics should be addressed? Or do you think there are enough books about expat kids? Please break the silence with me on my blog and let your voice be heard.

Ps. Let me share another secret with you. If you want more comments on your blog then leave more comments on other blogs and see what happens. I tried it and it works, but it requires some discipline and time.

Related Posts:
Book review of the book: Expat Teens Talk 
Interview with Heidi Sand-Hart author of "Home Keeps Moving"
Book: Emotional Resilience and the Expat Child
Third culture kids speaking "I'm not from Anywhere"
Book review of Expat Alien
Interview with Expat Author Apple Gildley (Adventures In Expat Land)

May You Have a Rich Multicultural Year in 2013

I'm dreaming of ice skating: photo by DrieCulturen

I really wanted to write a Christmas wish this year but before I knew it I was too late. So before new year's eve hits us I want to wish you all a rich multicultural year wherever you are at the moment and wherever you will be going in the year ahead.

Thank you for reading this post. Thank you to everyone I have connected with this past year through this blog, twitter or facebook. I enjoy life a little more through all the new encounters. As a way of expressing my gratefulness there's a giveaway available here on this blog. If you are interested in winning a free signed copy of Maggie Mykleburst's book "Fly Away Home" leave a comment before the 31st of December 2012.

Looking back over 2012 here are 10 things I am excited about:

1. Connecting with so many interesting people this year.
2. A new book that was published "Expat Teens Talk" by Lisa Pittman and Diana Smit. Here's my book review.
3. A new mentoring program for expat teens that has been started called Sea Change Mentoring. Here's an interview I had with Ellen, the initiator.
4. Discovering a great third culture kid poem: "Who Am I?" written by Marina Sofia.
5. In honour of my blog's first anniversary that TCK author Heidi Sand-Hart agreed to an interview and to give away a signed copy of her book "Home Keeps Moving". If you missed the interview do read it.
6. I was on the radio on two different occasions this year talking about my experience growing up abroad as a third culture kid. Here is the interview on DeGids.fm "Een DrieCulturen kind voelt zich eigenlijk nergens thuis. Here is the interview on Expat Radio "Niet weten waar je thuishoort, je bent wellicht een TCK!" Both are in Dutch.
7. The blog post with third culture kid Victoria saying "I am not from Anywhere" received the most comments this year.
8. This blog was nominated for a couple of awards: The Versatile blogger award, Blog Expat Top Award , I'm not a tourist expat blog competition.
9. I really liked this guest blog by Libby Stephens "Grandparenting over the seas".
10. Daily there are people from more than 10 different countries in the world reading blog posts here. The last 24 hours people from the USA, the Netherlands, Russia, the UK, Israel, New Zealand, Germany, France, India and Austria were here. It's a small world after all! It's exciting.

I need to share something funny. The top search word that people search for and reach my blog is the word "tjendol". I was really surprised. In this post I shared 7 things about myself. This is what I wrote: one of my favourite drinks is: Tjendol (or Cendol), in good Indonesian restaurants you can get it here in the Netherlands. It's just divine. It's with coconut milk and palm sugar. Lesson learned: you're never too old to taste something new. I thought the top search word might be "expat" or "third culture kids" but no "tjendol" is the word that won this year. Sometimes things just work out differently than you expected.

Looking back are there things that you are excited about? What are you grateful for?

Ps. remember to leave a comment and have a chance at winning a free signed copy of Maggie's book.

Here's some advice from Maggie for third culture kids: "Although I think it's great to consider yourself a citizen of the world, I still think its important to know where you come from. To feel a sense of pride and belonging to your passport country."

Related Posts:

• Christmas the Third Culture Kid Way by Unsettled TCK Cecilia Haynes
• An Expat's Letter to Santa by MaDonna Maurer at Raising TCKs
• Christmas Around the World
• For the Third Culture Kid birthday candles are easier to come by than the Christmas kind by the Displaced Nation

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