Blog
Third Culture Kids and Repatriating Well
A client shared with me recently how they had been looking for accounts of Third Culture Kids repatriating, and how little they had found to very little to inform them. This challenged me in more ways than one – first to consider why the narrative of TCK repatriation...
Third Culture Kids and (In)competence
How often do you feel like a fish out of water; feeling as though you lack the necessary ‘something’ to succeed in your current environment? In short, how often do you find yourself feeling incompetent, or that you are being perceived as incompetent? Erikson’s Psychosocial Development theory sees ages 5/6 to 12 as the time in which we negotiate a sense of industry or inferiority; successful experiences of industry leave us with a sense of our own competence, one we can build on and take with us into our adult life. At this time of live, we begin to look outward from our initial total reliance on home and parental caregivers for our sense of self – we begin to look to our peers. In our broadening social context we try our hand at different experiences, different challenges – often within the context of school – and build up a sense of ‘what we are good at’, and also ‘what we are bad at’. In short, we our competentences are intimately connecte with our sense of who we are and ‘how good we are’.
Frozen Fractal TCK Superpowers – a complicated Christmas?
We’ve often heard talk of TCK superpowers – our Third Culture Kid adaptive abilities lend themselves to chameleon-like behaviours, useful when entering different cultural or social situations, and for helping other people feel comfortable with us. Maybe we have other superpowers – we are expert tree-climbers, super-packers, linguists… These can come in especially handy around the Christmas holidays – keeping the peace amongst relatives, navigating multiple time zones, integrating different Christmas traditions from all around the world. Though maybe not the tree-climbing…
Third Culture Kids & Purpose
The Third Culture Kids I work with are typically highly motivated to contribute something significant to the world, and are often concerned that they aren’t doing enough. Erikson, in his development model, ‘The eight stages of man’, refers to the ages of about 4 to 5 as the significant time in the life course when we become aware of ‘purpose’. We begin to use initiative to achieve our aims, our purpose, and if successful we feel highly motivated to continue reaching for these. If unsuccessful or if we feel shamed or inept in some way, we lose initiative, and instead feel guilt about our lack of purpose.
Third Culture Kid Identity: the Early Years (2) & WILL
This post is looking at years 2 to 4, and the question Erikson identifies here is; “Can I do things or must I rely on others?” The virtue that Erikson says we are aiming for at this age is WILL, a sense of our own abilities and autonomy. So we can expect to see children at this age eager to ‘do it myself’! This is the age of trying everything oneself, and children will quickly pick up on any shaming they experience when they occasionally (or even often!) fail to achieve the independence they are reaching for.
TCK Identity and the Life Course: the Early Years (1) & HOPE
Do you trust the world?
Do you have a sense that people are reliable, trustworthy, and generally respond positively to you and your needs? Can you rely on them?
If not, we have our first glitch – and I suspect a deep sense of anxiety acting as an undercurrent to your interactions with those around you. I want to use this first post in this series to explore how we can address this. If you have a lack of HOPE in the world around you, let’s explore where and why Erikson see’s that lack first kicking off.
TCKs & Identity and Belonging – when did it all go wrong?
Okay, so first things first: As a Third Culture Kid who works with Third Culture Kids, when it comes to identity and belonging, I don’t believe it did all go “wrong”. But the title of this post reflects the feeling that a lot of TCKs I speak to experience. We can get so confused by our own stories and experiences, so overwhelmed, that we can get a definite sense that it did all go wrong somewhere.
Third Culture Kid? You are not alone…
Third Culture Kids are beautiful. They are complex. They have lives that astound, dismay, confound and inspire. Third Culture Kids are connectors, bridge-builders. They are also people pleasers, peace makers, community chasers. Third Culture Kids have no one personality profile, but they share so many experiences. The cumulative effect of their experiences creates a culture of its own, a kind of marginality in company – and good company at that! And at the same time, Third Culture-ness can make one feel so desperately alone, cut off, alienated.
A Relational Stock-take: who are you investing in?
Do you have a moment, right now, to do a quick relational stock-take?
Can you track through your significant others – family, friends, wider community – and log how much time you have invested in these this week?
How do you feel about your total?
Third Culture Kids: An Alternative Answer to “Where are You From”?
How do you feel about the question, “Where are you from?” My own brain immediately starts to spin at the question – spiralling through all the variables that could be relevant to the questioner…
Place or country?
Where I was born or where I have spend the most time?
The country that they can see in my face/accent/language, or the one I feel most attached to?
But also… why is the person asking? Did break a social rule that betrayed me as not being from ‘here’? Are they trying to figure out if we are alike? Are they trying to figure out which cultural box I belong in, and what to expect from me?