The Fishbowl
TCK crescono in una boccia di vetro.
“As a Third Culture Kid, I don’t belong anywhere…I’m always too foreign. Like all Third Culture Kids (TCK), I always dread the same question: ‘Where are you from?’” -JJ Wong
A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her development years outside the parents’ culture. The TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.
David Pollock believed many of the challenges to identity and belonging that TCKs often face occur, at least in part, because of their switching cultural rules so completely, profoundly, and often during the first 18 years of life. This interrupts the traditional developmental process of how children learn identity from the world around them and how they develop a sense of belonging to a place or a national community.
The third culture is neither an assimilation into the new culture nor a blending of two different cultures but the third culture itself is a distinct way of life different from either home or host cultures.
So what is that experiential something that is shared by those who live and grow up in the third culture? Virtually all TCKs share the following experiences:
Growing up in a genuinely cross-cultural world. TCKs don’t simply study other cultures, they experience them by living in them.
Being raised in a highly mobile world. With each flight from passport culture to host culture or vice versa, some family or friends are left behind while others are met. Everyone has some level of mobility and associated losses in their lives, but the repeated cycles of loss pose one of the biggest challenges that TCKs face.
TCKs don’t fit in. Often in the host culture, TCKs may not look like their peers, but even when they do, in both home and host culture, they often don’t think like those around them.
There is an expected repatriation. TCKs are not immigrants. They do not expect to live permanently in their host culture, but have the expectation that “one day we will go home”. This influences the TCKs ability to create roots in a location.
TCKs often have a strong identity with the system their parents are a part of/work for. Many TCKs have a feeling of being in a representational role. They believed it was up to them not to let down the system for which their parents worked. In addition the people around them expected the children’s behavior to be consistent with the goals and values of the organizational system for which the parents worked.
“When I am in class in the host culture my classmates are always saying, ‘That’s because you’re American. For example: You’re good at volleyball because you’re American. Which I hate. But then when we are back in the United States my own cousins make fun of me for not being able to spell a word correctly or for not knowing something about the culture or the way things work there. No matter where I am, I don't quite fit.” -TCK, 20 years old
The difficulty for many TCKs and their families is that they may not be aware of this third culture, the culture that they are truly a part of. They don’t feel fully at home in their host culture, not that they don’t integrate, love and appreciate their host culture, because many TCKs do, but they may maintain a different accent, or have a different skin color or physical appearance, or have certain cultural or religious practices that distinguish them from the local people. Yet, they do not feel fully at home in their passport culture either. And so they have this sense of never truly belonging to any cultural group. That is why the third culture is so powerful for TCKs. It is a place of belonging that is unique to their experience. It is where they find their sense of home, identity, and belonging.
In fact, we asked a group of TCKs of various ages to draw “What is HOME for you?” None of them drew a place. From young TCKs, to ATCKs, “home” was not based on a building where they physically live, a country or even a culture. Their sense of “home” was in the people around them. TCKs often found their sense of home in their family, in the team that their family is a part of on the field, and/or in other TCKs who understand and share their life experiences and identity.
Why is it important to be aware of this as parents of TCKs, Teams that have TCKs as part of their group, or as a TCK themself?
It is important both in terms of helping your TCK with understanding themselves and their sense of identity, as well as in helping your TCK to build relationships with other TCKs within the global community. In the research on PCEs in TCKs it was found that two of the 8 pillars are:
They have supportive friends.
They feel a sense of belonging with peers, mentors and teachers.
TCKs need to belong. All of us need to experience a sense of belonging. In fact it is one of the positive childhood experiences that influence the long term mental and physical health of all people. Yet, TCKs have an even stronger need to feel like they belong somewhere because they have daily experiences that make them feel as if they do not belong. They need more reassurance and a safe place, because the evidence around them speaks louder. They need to know that they belong with this special group of people who understands and shares similar experiences.
If you are a parent of a TCK, especially if you are in the midst of a move or transition, consider doing this exercise with your child(ren):
Sit down at a table with your TCK and a piece of paper, colors, pens and pencils.
Ask them, “What is home to you?” Can you draw it for me? Then give them time and space to draw their representation of “home”.
When they are done, ask them to explain their drawing to you. Ask what certain words or items represent for them. Ask them about the people they drew and why they are important to them.
If they drew people from your current team and you will be moving soon to a new place with a new team, give them time to talk about the loss around that. Don’t solve the problem for them. Don’t minimize it by saying “You will meet new people and we will have a new team!” Just listen, sit with them and allow them space to grieve.
Give them affection and take some time to pray together.
Come back to what they shared. If they shared about special people from your team, make sure that you create space for them to say goodbye in a meaningful way to the team members. If they shared words that express the concept of home for them, or how the family feels like home to them, then talk with them about how you can work together to build that sense in the new place that you will live. Ask them what they feel might help them during this season of change?
If you feel uncertain about how to have this type of conversation with your child, let us know! We are here to help. You can also consider talking to another TCK and asking what helped them, or reaching out to another parent of a TCK and asking them how they faced change and transition as a family.
