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Kim: [00:00:01] Well, today, I am talking with my friend Anna Seidel, Global Mobility Trainer, about our favorite topic, Third Culture Kids. Now, this is a topic that we could – and we do regularly – talk about for hours and hours and we share a lot of the same or similar opinions. And we share a deep desire to see our own Third Culture Kids realize the advantages of this upbringing while minimizing the potential pitfalls or negative effects. I don’t want to say minimizing the challenges, because there will always be challenges, but more of how can we build our awareness so that we work work with those challenges and work them into a healthy … human, basically.

[00:00:56] I just listened to Anna talk in the Facebook group “Expats on Purpose,” so by the time this episode airs, it’ll be a couple of weeks old. It aired on January 8th in case you want to go back and look in the group and hear that introduction to our topic. She was talking about identity and belonging, and I wanted to build on that and go a little bit further with that today.

[00:01:23] Now, I’m going to let Anna tell a little bit of her story, because her upbringing is a little different from mine. So we are able to come at this topic from both a monocultural parent and a TCK parent’s perspective. Thank you so much for being with me today. Would you tell us a little bit of your story, whatever you want to share. And we’ll also have to get into some terminology as well.

Anna: [00:01:48] I think we will. Thanks, Kim. This is fun. As you said, we do spend a lot of time on this subject, so it’s really good to get it… To record it.

Kim: [00:01:57] Yeah, yeah.

Anna: [00:02:00] I think that’s the Third Culture Kid, meaning somebody that grows up between cultures. We can get into definitions a little more later. My story started when I was four years old. My parents moved overseas from the US to Germany, where my dad got a job as a teacher working for a DOD school, the Department of Defense, and because my parents had both traveled. My dad is a TCK himself and they had this strong urge to raise us overseas, in, with some context of an international environment, which was kind of hard to do in Oregon in the 70s on a teacher’s salary. They weren’t going to go anywhere. So we grew up mostly in Germany, so we didn’t have a lot of moving as children. But we did always have that sense of we might move in two years, the contract’s up, what are we going to do?

Anna: [00:02:54] And the trying to always stay in touch and the the whole concept of community. And who do you belong to? Where you belong to you. You’re these Americans living in a German village. Not active duty military. So we weren’t tied into the military community in the same way as those families were. So were kind of an island on our own. And we had a lot of… We had German friends within and then the rotational like the teacher community. But those people were often there for a few years and then kept moving.

Kim: [00:03:31] Whereas you guys stay put for a long time.

Anna: [00:03:33] We stayed put, we didn’t intend to stay put. It was one of those things, you know, you look back 20 years later and you realize, oh, if I’d known that I would have bought a house and done this and that.

Anna: [00:03:45] But there was always a sense of moving, and the community around us was moving, so there were always those goodbyes and changes within that. And that’s part of a very typical part of the TCK experience. As a family, if we look at identity and belonging, belonging was something that my parents worked, my mom especially worked really hard at. Creating with a close connection to our family back in the States through mail, you know, actual physical mail and visits. We – my grandparents were still young at the time and they… Actually my grandma was about my age now, when we moved.

Kim: [00:04:26] Well, this is you’re blowing my mind.

Anna: [00:04:29] She had my mom really young and my mom had me really young. So yeah. So they visited us. So by them coming into our space and getting to know our life, that made a closer connection and made us feel like we’re part of them. And then we spent summers in the States too. So we had lots of family connections that which grounded us and gave us a sense of belonging to a family unit as well.

Kim: [00:04:54] Yeah. All right, so you are a Third Culture Kid, but there are other terms that people use. You want to talk a little bit about what those different terms are and when you like to use them and how we all fit into that?

Anna: [00:05:11] Yeah, I can do that. So the three terms that usually come up when we talk about kids growing up overseas (and that term itself is a bit weighted) or abroad. But the Third Culture Kid – we’ll just use the definition by by Ruth van Reken – is that children who move into another culture with their parents due to a parent’s career choice. So it’s always with a sense of limits. There’s a certain end to it in sight for the TCK. Now, that doesn’t always happen. Often contacts are extended and go two years, two years, two years. And I guess you end up 20 years later. But there’s always that element of moving for a certain amount of time due to the parent’s career.

Kim: [00:05:59] And it feels like a choice as well.

Anna: [00:06:02] Definitely for one of the parents, it’s a choice. Ideally for both of the parents. And then the other term that is more all encompassing is the Cross Cultural Kid. And that’s a child that has meaningfully interacted with two or more cultural environments. And that obviously includes the TCKs, but it also includes children, immigrant children, it includes includes children growing up with, in a cross-cultural marriage, which is common, increasingly common. So you’ve got kids growing up in a monocultural community, perhaps, but their parents are mixed cultures. So they’re learning and getting to know two different cultures.

[00:06:48] My husband is a CCK. He has a German dad and an English mom. And so he learned growing up being between two cultures as well. And a lot of people grow up like that. And there are some skill sets that CCKs have that we need to be recognizing and using more in the world at large. A third term is the global nomad, and this can apply to a person of any age that lives in a mobile international life, so moving around. And this can be an adult, too. So you can have children that are global nomads. So TCKs again are global nomads, but it also applies to adults that are moving, whether as expats or by choice for travel or whatever, spending a certain amount of time everywhere on the move. So we’ve the TCKs, the CCKs (Cross Culture Kids) and global nomads, those are three terms that we use and the things that we talk about apply to all of those really that we’re going to talk about.

Kim: [00:07:48] Ok. Do you want to touch a little bit on some of the advantages of this upbringing?

Anna: [00:07:55] I would love to. Because we hear a lot about the scary negative stuff, right. And I’m sure we’ll get into that a little bit, too. But let’s start with the positives. Some of the advantages that come up in the survey that we completed in November was:.

[00:08:11] An acceptance of diversity and open mindedness in the children that grow up between cultures.

[00:08:16] Language skills. Keep in mind, this doesn’t apply to everyone. So you’re not always going to learn language skills if you’re a TCK or a CCK, but it is a big part of it.

[00:08:27] Cultural understanding generally that broadened horizons, having a global mindset. These are skills that you can use all over the world for the rest of your life if you’re aware of them too.

[00:08:39] A certain amount of flexibility and adaptability.

[00:08:42] Resilience is a big one that comes up. But these are all things that also have to be fostered and built. You’re not going to have the resilience if you don’t grow up with a certain skill set as well. So resilience is a result of moving and learning to cope, and learning that you it’s OK.

[00:08:59] So another one that I personally have identified is the confidence in your ability to start over wherever and whatever your situation. So if you have bad experiences and you find that you’re not accepted at school and maybe your parents broke up as part of all of moving, your resilience level is not automatic just because you’re a TCK. But if you have positive experiences that can build within you. And so that, just that ability that I can start over, whatever happens, is a key part, can be a key part of the TCK experience.

[00:09:36] Another one is the comfort with ambiguity, accepting that there are two rights, right? And multiple ways of doing things, and that’s OK. And that is a huge, huge advantage of growing up between cultures.

Kim: [00:09:52] It’s very distinct from a monocultural upbringing. It’s not to say that people who grow up monoculturally can’t have that trait as well, it’s just that it’s not nearly as common to have that perspective.

Anna: [00:10:10] I know Kim you see that in your kids, too. That they can accept different things as being not mutually exclusive? There’s no just one way of doing things. The flip side, of course, is that could be negatives. You have a bit of indecisiveness? You know, like how do I do this? And well this on the one hand, on the other hand, how do I decide to do things? But the good side of it is that you can accept all that and you don’t insist on doing it only your way because you know that there are other ways.

Kim: [00:10:41] Yeah, it doesn’t become a rigidity.

Anna: [00:10:45] So those are some of the advantages that came up in the survey and some things that I see specifically as well.

Kim: [00:10:51] Can you talk a bit more about maybe why and how some of these advantages don’t come automatically and the ways that we need to foster the skills and build them, be more intentional to help them develop?

Anna: [00:11:10] Yeah, I’m just going to quote from a book I’m reading right now, this is Lauren Wells Raising Up A Generation of Healthy Third Culture Kids. I really, really enjoy this book. And she says in Chapter 7, “identity is bred and fostered in belonging, and belonging is what fosters resilience.”

Anna: [00:11:34] By knowing who I am, that’s identity. So who am I personally, right? And knowing and having a feeling of belonging. Belonging is which group do I feel comfortable in? Can I fully be myself? Once I have those two things that is going to help me build the resilience. And that’s our ultimate goal, is to have strong children that don’t feel off balance. And so we as parents can help our children develop their identity – we can get into that in a little bit – and we can help them feel that sense of belonging. And those two things together, those pillars will help them have a strong foundation for whatever comes. After 2020, we know that anything can happen. And then we can get through it. That’s the key.

[00:12:35] So identity is part of personhood, right? And in the book, Growing Up Among Worlds, our main reference book, for this, they introduce the work of Barbara Knuckles and she uses she talks about identity anchors. So if you picture the child’s identity or anyone’s identity, really, it’s tied by three things. So on three sides, one side is family, the next side is community and the third is place. And those three make the tent poles that hold or frame a child. When the child is small those are tighter. And as we grow, the tent gets bigger and we explore things. We see interactions between family and community and family and place. So it’s a multi dimensional model, really, that shows how different aspects of those identity formation also act with each other. They anchor us and they mirror back how we are too. So our family mirrors back how they see us, our community, and so on.

[00:13:49] Now, what happens when we move is that those anchors shift or are broken away for a while before they’re rebuilt. But the one that usually stays is the family.

Anna: [00:14:03] So if we move, then that community breaks away, mostly, the physical community. We might still have a virtual community and connection, but that goes away AND the place is changing. So two of our three identity formation pillars are gone. Which means that the family becomes really, really important.

[00:14:24] So that’s something that we as parents need to understand that how important we are always, but especially if we’re moving, and especially in the beginning of a move, to our child’s identity formation. And how everything that we do is mirroring back to them how we see them and how we expect them to act. So that’s an important thing that we need to acknowledge: Is parents are important in this aspect of the children. And then to build once we’ve moved, to build up the other pillars as well so that we don’t have the weight of all of that on our shoulders too, because that’s a lot to carry. But to look for communities to help, to encourage our children to join clubs and to be part of the school or church community, whatever it is, and to get to know a place and feel a certain groundedness. I think it’s all the truth that says wherever you go, I think her father said this. “Wherever you go, you plant a tree.” Right? So plant your roots. Be there. Don’t always be ready to leave, you know. Hang the pictures on the walls. Right? Be there. Be wherever you are.

Kim: [00:15:31] I still have pictures that aren’t hung. I did, I did hang up, hung a whole bunch, but I still have more that are not.

Anna: [00:15:39] There’s a certain sense of, well, I’m leaving again, why should I bother? And the point is: Be wherever you are. Make it a home and be there. Because like I said in the beginning, our two years turned into 20 years, in the end. You just don’t know that.

[00:15:56] So that’s identity.

Kim: [00:15:58] Yeah, in our first move, someone said to us, you know, “Some people set up an apartment. And some people build a home.” And that just always really stuck with me. That it’s a shift in your mindset of how you approach setting up your household, but it can make a big difference in how you feel and how your kids feel when you come back home from vacation and when you come back home from work and from the school day.

Anna: [00:16:28] Absolutely. I like that and I have ideas and memories popping into my head of how people handle their moves. You come with an air freight container and just the minimum, and then they set up their house and they realize after a while that it’s very functional, but it’s not home. Right. And then they start, you know, finding you hear, read it in the chat groups. Where can they get pictures printed. Right?

Anna: [00:16:53] Because they they realize they didn’t bring any photos to put on the wall. And you want to see people or if you can’t put it on the walls, you know, you want to have them set out. And then you start doing the nest building and making the place a home, because that is something that we are. We are humans. And part of our personhood is having is comfort. And we are visual and we are tactile and we need those things just for comfort. And then as we know, it’s part of our identity building as well.

[00:17:27] The other part is the belonging. Do you want to talk about that now or.

Kim: [00:17:32] That’s fine. No, I’m just still thinking about hanging my pictures on the wall. I’m going to defend myself and explain why they’re not hung up yet.

Anna: [00:17:45] So the other part… We’ve got identity that we as parents have a huge responsibility in. And then we’ve got belonging. Belonging is part of being, part of feeling part of a community of people. And whereas identity is usually singular – that’s ME – belonging can be in different groups. So I can have a sense of belonging to a family community, to my school community, to a club, to a spiritual community, there’s different ways of having that. But it’s also something that takes time to build up.

[00:18:18] And as parents, we can support our children. We should support our children. We need to find spaces where they can become part of a community and feel that sense of belonging. But it’s not something that happens automatically. It takes time. So your family, your close family community, your insular family, right? That’s one thing. But also your greater family. And I have a strong sense of belonging to my mom’s family. We had a lot of experiences as kids growing up where we spent summers with all the cousins. And just that one week every couple of years was huge because it was intentional and it was really, really, really intense.

[00:19:00] So I think that’s a good message to know, too, is that you don’t to have a sense of belonging, it doesn’t have to be close physically all the time. I saw my aunts and uncles and my cousins every other year. Now my grandparents, like I said, they traveled to see us. So we saw them a little more often. But my cousins, I’m still, I feel close and I feel like I know them. And I don’t know the ins and outs of their daily lives, but I feel like I know, I have a sense of who they are and how I belong to them because we spent so much time together. And that intentional time is important.

Kim: [00:19:39] I have cousins who I saw once a year. Some less frequently. But I felt very close to them because, as you say, it was when we saw them, it was quite intense for a few days. Yeah.

Anna: [00:19:52] Oh, yeah, and because it was it happened regularly, so it was for us, it was usually every two years and it was something we look forward to. And it was a silly time of camping out and blocked up toilets and stuff that we experienced together. Lots of singing, lots of songs, lots of life experience that we can still look back on – all of us. And that’s really important. But the message for parents of kids, I think, is that you can create that over time. You don’t have to have it together every day to have a sense of belonging.

Kim: [00:20:36] You talked about identity as personhood. You used that word, I think. But I think a lot of… Do you see a lot of parents confuse identity, what identity means?

Anna: [00:20:49] Yeah, I mean, identity in a classic sense, if you don’t think about it, identity is often tied to culture. So you identify as an American

Kim: [00:21:00] Yeah, passport.

Anna: [00:21:01] Or as a French or whatever your country is. And as we raise our children within and between various cultures, their identity is not usually tied to one culture. And I think that’s a big thing for parents that grew up culturally to get their heads around. That the children’s identity is one thing, it’s not going to be the same as theirs. All right, so if you grow up in a culture and you learn all the little rituals and the little secret hidden messages and signals of communication with that culture – deeply over over decades, as you grow up, you have an understanding of that that is tied to your identity very strongly. But a child that doesn’t have that, that gets, learns their parents’ culture through visits back “home” (let’s just leave that word there) and through celebrations. Say, staying with the American example, celebrating Thanksgiving, right? But it’s an isolated event that we do. OK, I understand this happens in November and we talk a little bit about the history of it and the culture of it. And, you know, we scramble to find, I don’t know, a turkey, right, where we’re living. That doesn’t give me the cultural identity that perhaps my parents have. It becomes part of my identity, but identity is no longer tied directly to culture as it is for many monocultural people.

Kim: [00:22:40] Yeah, and there’s something that I’m still, as you say, getting my head around. Like I, I can read about it and I can listen to it, but I still don’t think I fully get it.

Anna: [00:22:53] Well, I think every parent has to acknowledge that their children are going to be different from them wherever we’re growing up, right.

Kim: [00:23:01] What? What?!

Anna: [00:23:05] Sorry, Kim, that’s just the way it is.

Kim: [00:23:08] I am very intentionally raising my child to be just like me.

Anna: [00:23:12] Well, good luck with that.

Anna: [00:23:18] They’re not right, and that applies to all cultures wherever we’re growing up, but I think even more when we’re growing up, we’re raising our children outside of a culture that we don’t understand, in between cultures that we don’t understand.

Kim: [00:23:32] I think it is scary for parents to realize that their child doesn’t take on the same labels. I remember when my daughter said that she wasn’t an American or she doesn’t really feel like an American. I felt like I had done something wrong. I’ve gotten over that now. But I, I do relate to that sense of … I don’t want to call it desperation. But I do see posts sometimes where parents are reaching out for help and saying, “How can I make sure that my child maintains our cultural traditions and our cultural understandings?” And it’s a very strong desire to instill this sense of cultural identity. And so to step back from that and allow that to be OK, that my child is not going to have that same sense of cultural identity, I think it’s threatening to the parent’s own sense of identity.

Anna: [00:24:29] I agree with that. It’s threatening to their own sense of identity, but it’s also scary because they they might be thinking if they’re not this well, then what are they?!

Kim: [00:24:41] Exactly. Yeah, I don’t have a word for what they are. Yeah.

Anna: [00:24:46] Will they be confused? Will they be worried, will they not know where to belong? And I would say no. As long as we acknowledge that they are going to be different. That’s OK. I remember when I first heard of TCK. The first time I heard the term was in the 90s when I was at university. My mom sent me a link to this Gopher site, which is an early type of website. Very text based.

Kim: [00:25:15] This is long ago.

Anna: [00:25:18] It is, but. And I remember just sitting in the computer lab, it didn’t have my own computer.

Kim: [00:25:24] Yeah.

Anna: [00:25:25] At university reading this stuff and going, yeah! Yes! Yes! This! This is it. This is … There are other people that feel the stuff that I feel. And a lot of adult TCKs have that revelation, that feeling of, oh, wait, OK, so that’s where I belong. That’s part of me. And it would be nice if we could raise our children with an understanding that there are others that feel this … confusion? This sense of belonging in multiple places and multiple groups at a time. So they don’t have to wait until they’re adults to discover that.

[00:26:02] And it starts with parents acknowledging that kids are going to be different and that we can. That’s a really good thing. I mean, look at our kids now that are saying right now, I don’t really want to be American. I’m German this week. Or we just got a dog that has a Scottish name and we have Scottish heritage, so my youngest has decided she’s actually Scottish right now. She has no sense of what that would actually mean, but it’s a beautiful thing, that they feel like they have these choices. And they’re creating their identity through that by trying out different things and by celebrating different festivals.

[00:26:44] And I don’t want to minimize the importance of cultural belonging. I think it’s important for parents to share their cultures, however many they have, with their children, because that creates a sense of identity for the child and belonging within the family in the community. And that ties to a culture. But it’s not exclusive. You know, it’s OK to celebrate a German Christmas tradition – that’s Christmas Eve and other things – and an American Christmas tradition. I mean, some kids think it’s great because they’re getting gifts twice, but that’s not the point. It’s understanding that you are part of different things and all of that makes up you.

Kim: [00:27:32] I’ve seen some in that in TCK forums, I’ve seen some discussions where it seems like some people have not fully oh, I don’t know what the word is, like, maybe they haven’t fully reconciled this belonging in many different groups and places and how that interplays with their identity, their personhood. Because, I mean, the question, “Where are you from?” is like just the tip of the iceberg. But for someone to say, oh, there was one recently, they were talking about being your authentic self. That authenticity is a big word right now that gets a lot of discussion. And this person said, I feel very confused and conflicted around trying to be my authentic self because which authentic self should I be? Should I be my self who speaks Thai and loves Thai food and celebrates Songkran? Or should I be my authentic self who is confused by American holidays and traditions? Or should I be my authentic self who is comfortable in the call to prayer in a Muslim place? You know, just like all these different things. And that if I try to be one authentic self in the wrong group, then it doesn’t go over well. And then I don’t feel like, like they felt like they were splintering, I guess.

Anna: [00:29:00] Yes, I think that’s really, really common.

Kim: [00:29:02] Yeah, I do think it’s really common, and some people had a really beautiful way of saying, you know, these are just all different parts of me, they’re all part of me. But it seemed to me like kind of not fully recognizing, maybe, the differences between identity and belonging and not fully integrating all of those experiences into one identity.

Anna: [00:29:26] A rainbow is only beautiful if you’ve got all the colors right? And they’re all separate, but together they make the rainbow. And that applies to us as well. I personally have, I wouldn’t call it different identities, but different shades of identity, different colors, maybe, if you will. Like if I’m in Germany, I become very… German. That’s not a fair way to say it, but I you know, the sort of punctual, strong sense of right and wrong and this is how you do it, and you didn’t do this so you have to do that. That comes out much stronger in me. Traits that can be advantageous sometimes, but can be a bit extreme as well. But if you and then if I’m in that environment, that comes out stronger. Whereas when I’m in South Africa, I’m a lot more relaxed. Things are just kind of, you accept that sense of time is different and things just kind of go at a different tempo. And I’m OK with that. And so that comes out. And if I spend any time in the States, I notice that my clothing style changes, my language changes. You know, if I’m surrounded by Americans my American accent gets a lot stronger and I get a lot more, you think of the slang and you realize that you start using more references that apply to … That the people that you’re with understand better.

[00:31:06] I learned that the hard way. I mean, I went to the States to go to school when I was 19, fresh out of Germany, and Europe and the lifestyle here. And I realized pretty quickly that talking about that didn’t work very well. So you could say you’re hiding, but I think you’re actually revealing just different parts of you, and as you create a sense of belonging in a place with new people, then you can let out different parts of your identity. Right? I mean, if you show up at Oregon State University with a bunch of other students that have never left the state, that have very different experiences and you start talking about your summer in Italy, you know, and drinking Lambrusco and whatever, you know, traveling by train, there’s nowhere for the connections to be created because they don’t understand your experiences.

Anna: [00:32:04] And then in my case, I was labeled as arrogant, as stuck up, as unapproachable. But when I stopped talking about that – even though it had just happened to me, it was really, really relevant – and tried to find more common ground. So you pull out the Americanisms and you become more like them, then you create a common ground, create a sense of belonging. And once you’re in it, you find your people, then you can start talking about more about your true self and your experiences in a situation where they’ve gotten to know you and then it becomes more natural and then they accept it. And then it’s like, wow, that’s really cool. I’d love to do that too. Instead of what’s she talking about? Because they couldn’t relate. So you’re not hiding, but you’re just choosing what to reveal at what time, of your identity.

Kim: [00:32:56] And we all do that to an extent or another. I mean, I go out and people ask me how I spend my day and depending on who I’m talking to, I might tell them very different things about how I spent my day. But I also don’t pretend that that is the same experience as this very deep and often unsettling sense of not being sure which part of me to reveal when.

Anna: [00:33:25] I really understand the feeling of, you know, I have to hide part of me. And I actually talked to my kids about it when we moved, returned from China to Germany last year. That it might not make you friends right away if you start talking about all your experiences overseas. So, yeah, you just you you find to build a connection with people. To start creating a sense of belonging in a group you have to find the common ground to. And if you find common ground and then you can really reveal who you are and your experiences, then and you feel comfortable talking about all of that, then you have created a sense of belonging. If you are just there and you always have to always have to hide that and you can never talk about that, that’s not belonging. Right. That’s just being part of a group, but you’re not actually belonging to a group.

Kim: [00:34:21] You’re not fully there.

Anna: [00:34:22] You’re not fully there because you’re not fully accepted. But like you said, everybody does that. I mean, everybody chooses what they’re going to show. I mean, you don’t go to work in a corporate environment and necessarily talk about all of your problems at home. Right. We all choose what we show in different situations. It’s just that maybe a TCK or a global nomad has more things that they can choose from.

Kim: [00:34:53] Well. What are some ways you think parents maybe get it wrong unintentionally or maybe in a misguided way, like they might even think they’re helping, but it backfires and turns out to be a negative impact the way they try to shepherd their kids along through these moves and identity formation?

Anna: [00:35:16] I think, first of all, I think everybody’s trying their best, right? We all… None of us really know what we’re doing right? But I think that what, we’ve talked about this already, this pushing the culture a lot. Like this is the only culture or religion, a belief system. Now, if that makes up your personal identity so much, then it’s really hard to let your child develop their own. But by pushing that too much and stressing totally, you know, my child has to understand all the ins and outs of my culture and my traditions and our rituals, to the exclusion of anything else. That’s where you might be damaging, more than helping.

[00:36:10] And the flip side of that, again, if you don’t share any of that. If you say, oh, I’m now living in this new culture, in this new space, so we’re going to learn everything about this place and forget all of our old stuff. That’s not being true to yourself, and if you’re not your true self, then how can you help your child become their true self, right? What comes to mind is like immigrants to the US, right. Like my grandfather always regretted that his parents didn’t speak German to him. Because he says that would have been really interesting to know because that was so much part of them and who they were, that they sort of cut off so that their children would become more American.

[00:36:58] And we see that in all cultures. And you get that in Germany or in other places where people come and they want to be completely in the new culture. But they’re not being true to themselves then because they’re cutting out a part of their identity and not sharing that with the children. So it’s all about balance, isn’t it? You know, finding, not pushing one thing, but not cutting it out either. And bottom line is just accepting that your kids are going to have a different identity from you and let them develop that and support them, that.

Kim: [00:37:35] So there are a lot of strong feelings around moving. Like you talked about, the three tent poles, the three anchors, family, community and place. And when two thirds of your of your sense of self gets ripped apart, there are a lot of feelings around that. Do you have any suggestions for when you’re not sure what your kids are feeling and they aren’t really talking about it? I mean, sometimes you can just ask directly and they respond, but a lot of times that doesn’t work very well. So it might be a teenager who’s not in a very talkative stage or it might be a younger child who can’t articulate it very well, or can be all kinds of reasons why they might not be very forthcoming.

Anna: [00:38:26] Yeah, there’s a couple of things that we can do, but it all requires that we understand that something may be going on. So the first, the first step is the awareness that there might be something happening that we need to even be looking out for.

[00:38:43] First we can ask our kids. We know our kids best. So you can ask them.

[00:38:46] If you, if they’re not going to answer, then there’s that tip of asking “How are your friends?” Or your stuffed animal. Or “How did they see this?” Or “How would they feel about moving?” Or “What is their take on a situation?” And you might get more of an answer there. My kids are very talkative. They can’t always find the words. Now, there are tools and things to help children develop an emotional vocabulary that will help with that.

[00:39:17] But otherwise, you know, so you ask around and around the friends sort of ask them how their friends are feeling around a situation. But the other thing is to, well, observe your child and see if their behavior is changing. If you notice things, excessive amount of sleeping or retreating into their room or crying is obviously one of them or anger, aggression. If they’re younger, things like changes in bedwetting again or aggression towards a sibling or. So there’s those signs.

[00:39:56] But to get it out of them, we can use like talking doesn’t work for everybody, but other things do. So find their medium. Is it art? Right. Give them art supplies and let them freely express, or you guide it. You say, you know, draw something positive or an experience. Leave it open, but let them express themselves through art.

[00:40:19] If they’re older and they like to write or journal, give them maybe some new journaling supplies and let them process that way. If they want to share with you or not. But just by processing it, giving them if they really like a brand new book and a nice new pen, then give them that. You know, just leave it there for them to access.

[00:40:38] Or give them just a space, a comfortable space where it’s OK to retreat. So like for a teenager that really, really likes to be on her own, maybe. And that’s OK. Make it OK. Right. Create a comfortable space with good lighting and a space for her to go off and have the time to herself because she might need that.

[00:41:05] But and then so there’s different ways to let the children at different ages and different sort of personal preferences express what’s going on. And once you have a feeling that something is going on and happening and they’re not processing well or they’re sad or they’re then you can start having conversations, but just asking us straight out isn’t usually going to work.

Anna: [00:41:31] But there are different ways to let them express sort of what they’re feeling and then you can talk about that if they let you. But even if they don’t, if you’re not talking to them about it, by letting them express it through art or through writing or making music or building something, there are lots of different ways to let your children express themselves and, you know your kids best.

Kim: [00:41:55] Again, when we’re talking about those three anchors and we’re talking about how the kids have lost their community and their place, but the same thing is happening to us as adults at the same time, which has a huge knock on effect on our ability to be present and take care of the family and the ways that we might normally be doing that. How do you think that affects our ability to support our kids?

Anna: [00:42:21] It affects our ability to support the kids massively. Because we might have a strong sense of identity that’s usually tied to a community and a place as well. And if that breaks away as an adult too, then we don’t have our tent poles to hold us either. And if we’re not supported and we don’t feel strong and we’re sort of wobbly, then the same thing’s going to … How can we support our children? Because we are one of their pillars. We are one of their tent poles. So as parents, everything we talked about is important, but we can’t do any of that unless we are feeling strong and we are feeling supported.

[00:43:03] What we have to do when we move or life changes is, is find our stability and find our sense of belonging in a new community. And that takes some effort too. I mean it takes, we have to be very brave to step out and say “I need some help” or to accept help that’s being offered or to find a new community. That’s hard. It’s really, really hard. I mean, where do I find my new friends? Where do I find the support that I need? And that’s something that we have to work on because – for ourselves, for our own personhood – but also because we’re parents.

Kim: [00:43:41] Yeah, and a lot of times we’re in a bit of like shell shock. This state, after when you arrive in a new place, it’s just … it’s just so much. And then we can retreat not just from the ways we might have been supporting our kids emotionally, but also just retreat from life in general, kind of hide out in the house and not really go out and meet people because it takes so much energy and we’re still recovering. And, yeah, just need a breather for awhile sometimes… and that extends.

Anna: [00:44:17] That’s right. And that’s OK to a certain degree, when we have to have the safe spaces where we can recover. Because moving and living in a in a different culture is hard. Right. And we need to have a space where we can retreat and recover, just like I said, with the kids, you know, have a space where they can go and feel cozy and comfort. But then if we always do that, we’re modeling that behavior for our children, too. So we have to show them that it’s you know, I’m going to step outside and I’m going to go talk to people and try something new. Because that’s good for us and it’s good for our children.

[00:44:55] I had an experience where my kids always have to try to taste everything right. And then I was sitting at a Chinese buffet dinner and there’s some really strange things on the table. And the Chinese moms are saying, try this, try this. “No, I’m good.” And then it clicked in my head and I said, wait a minute! I tell the kids they have to try this. So I do. Right? And so walk the talk, right. If you expect the kids to step out and meet new kids and be part of their school community, whatever, we need to do that. And it’s hard, but it’s going to pay off in the long term.

Kim: [00:45:36] That’s very good. Thank you so much for coming and talking with us, we could talk for a lot longer, but we have to cut it down and make this something that people will actually listen to. So we’ll stop here. I really appreciate having you come on today.

Anna: [00:45:51] Thank you. It’s been fun.

Kim: [00:45:54] All right, so keep an eye out for our group program, Adapt.Succeed.Together., and Anna will be running a group especially for parents of Third Culture Kids. So if you liked what you heard today, then be sure to look for her details. We’ll have some links below.

Anna: [00:46:11] And Kim will be running a group specially focusing on international school parents and families. We have a lot of commonalities and we might just be popping into each other’s groups to I think we’ll see how that goes.