Archive for the ‘Cross Cultural Kids’ Category

You’ve heard that expression, “Out of the mouths of babes comes the truth.” Well, when talking to the students at the Anglo-American School of Sofia (AAS-Sofia), I certainly heard a lot of true and common sense statements!

AAS-Sofia - School at the end of the rainbow!

I was recently invited by the Parent Teacher Organization to speak to students and parents at the AAS-Sofia, and was charmed by the enthusiastic participation of the student audiences, particularly the younger children who have few inhibitions about sharing their wisdom with others. When surveyed, their hands kept going up in the air when asked:

• “How many of you have been to one or more continents? 2, 3, 4, 5?”
• “How many of you have moved internationally two times? 3, 4, 5…6?”
• “How many of you speak more than one language at home?”
• “How many of you have more than one passport?”
• “How many of you have parents with different passports?”

These children fit the classic definition of a Third Culture Kid, TCK, or Global Nomad. They usually were born in one country and now live in another, have moved internationally multiple times, speak more than one language, and have traveled extensively. So when it comes to asking how to successfully navigate so many moves and adjustments, who better to ask than the experts themselves?

What pleasantly surprised me was how many of the kids have positive feelings about international relocations. Sure, they admitted, moving is not always fun. When asked what the hardest part about moving was, no matter the age, they always said it was hard to leave friends behind, and sometimes hard to make new ones.

Welcome to The Anglo-American School of Sofia

So if leaving friends behind is the hardest part about moving internationally, then what advice could they give to a kid about to do it for the first time? This was precisely the question I asked the elementary students, grades 3 – 5, as well as the middle school and high school students. I also asked them to comment on the other factors they identified as being difficult in order to give other kids some of their good advice. Though I got great counsel from all three groups, I will focus on the words of wisdom from the younger kids since we don’t hear their voices often enough. So, from the mouths of babes…

Challenge: Being the New Kid

Advice:

• Don’t be nervous
• Learn the language a little so that you can make new friends
• Pick out a person who you’d like to be friends with and be their friend
• Teach your new friends about your country
• Start a new conversation with another kid
• Be proud of yourself

Challenge: Play dates with New Friends

Advice:

• Show your new friend around your house
• Tell them about your house and about yourself
• Let them try different kinds of food at your house
• Play nice and be fair
• Make them feel like your house is their home
• Compare differences and find things in common

Challenge: How to Treat New Kid

Advice:

• Be friendly
• Invite them to play on the playground
• Sit with them at lunch so that they won’t be alone

Challenge: Saying Goodbye

Advice:

• Give hugs
• Give them a present (i.e. memory books)
• Keep in touch
• Wish them well

Challenge: Learning to deal with new people, places, foods, and culture

Advice:

• Tell them to just try some new food once to see if you like it
• Smile anyway
• Invite them to go somewhere with you and your family

Challenge: Dealing with homesickness for the last place they lived

Advice:

• Invite the person who is homesick to play
• Tell them to call or write their old friends, or look at a picture or memory book they might have given you
• Go out and have some fun with someone new
• Do something with your family
• Share your toys with the person who is new

In sum, these kids have an amazing positive attitude! Since they have been the new kid so many times, they know what it’s like. They understand that having a new friend is sometimes all it takes to start liking a place again. It’s the personal connection, and social interaction, that makes a place a home in every sense of the word. Their final words of advice for kids moving overseas?

Enjoy it! It’s fun to go new places!

Many thanks to the wonderful students, parents, teachers, administrators, and staff at The Anglo-American School of Sofia for enabling me to have such a productive and enjoyable visit.

Ask a *Third Culture Kid (TCK) where he/she is from, and watch most of them stumble over the answer. The TCK wonders, do you mean where I was born? The country of my passport? Where I live now? Where I used to live? Where my parents live? The place where I feel I most belong? And so the confusion begins!

On my recent trip to Utah, I met hundreds of new people. And 99% of each new conversation started with two questions: “What’s your name? Where are you from?” To tell you the truth, even I got tired of answering it. I started wondering to myself again – do you want the long answer or the short answer? Do I like you enough to tell you my whole life story? Or do you like me well enough to want to listen to it?

This question is the reason why so many TCKs have some identify confusion. It’s just complicated, and my personal opinion is that the answer needs to be rehearsed so that various versions are ready for different occasions.

But when TCKs get around other TCKs, the mood changes. All of the sudden it’s fun to compare notes! I was reminded of this yesterday when I was on the set of Dubai One television to tape an interview about TCKs for the show, “Twenty Something”. I met someone in the lobby of the studio who had a Swiss and Indonesian parent. We instantly had a connection. The presenter was born and raised in Dubai, but her parents were from Karala, India. Another staff member has Lebanese and Jordanian parents, but was raised in London. The staff person attending me is from the Philippines and her son is being raised in Dubai. The next guest interviewed, a celebrity hairdresser from Los Angeles, spoke of his multi-cultural background before his parents immigrated to the United States during his interview for the show. Everyone I spoke to had a mixed heritage from a multitude of cultures. Since the topic of the show was to talk about Third Culture Kids, everyone was in the mood to share bits of their own life stories. In that setting and situation, it was fun! And why? because we were with our own “tribe” of other people who understand what it means to have a very international life. Even though I’m an adult now, the same rules that apply for TCKs also apply to me….We don’t belong anywhere 100% – and yet we seem to fit in everywhere. Rootlessness and restlessness. Home is everywhere and nowhere. These are a few ways many TCKs define themselves.

Would you agree? What has been your experience, or that of your children’s, when it comes to roots, identity, and sense of belonging?

Feel free to comment – and if you get satellite TV, watch the interview about TCKs on Dubai One next Monday, April 19 at 8 pm, Tuesday at 3 pm, and Friday at 7 pm!

Click here for more resources about TCKs, or here to read more of my articles on the topic.

*A Third Culture Kid is someone who has spent a significant amount of their developmental years outside their parents own culture. The TCK builds relationships to all cultures while not having full ownership in any. Although elements of each culture is assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, a sense of belonging is in relationship to others of a similar background. – definition from David C. Pollock and Ruth Van Reken’s book, Third Culture Kids, The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds.

Perhaps one of the highlights of the conference for me was the presentation by Ruth Van Reken, who co-authored the book, Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, with the late David Pollock. This is the defining book for all who are interested in the lives of Third Culture Kids. (The newest revised edition just came out.) Ruth is a legend in the field of TCK and cross-cultural research, and spreads the message about these kids around the world with the zeal of a missionary. Therefore, I was thrilled to be there for her session.

In it, she explored the theme that all of us who have our own children who are TCKs, or who work with, TCKs, know all too well. And that is, the experiences that our children have had growing up internationally are rarely understood, validated, appreciated, or even acknowledged when they repatriate to the country of their passport. Even in schools, where one would hope that educators would exhibit more curiosity, the experiences of the Global Nomad are usually ignored. Thus, our kids, who have so much richness to offer others, often feel shut down, strange, different, weird, and alienated from others when it comes to this element of their lives.

What can be done about this? Ruth has worked with teachers and school systems over the years, and she says the first point is that local educators need to be convinced that awareness of TCKs is important. The audience participants broke into groups to discuss how this awareness might be raised, and several good strategies were suggested. The conclusion of the group was that each of us has a responsibility to carry the message forward in our own circles, our children’s classrooms, and in our schools. Our dream would be to see multi-cultural and cross-cultural education be a greater part of teacher education, too. This means not just raising awareness about racial multiculturalism and diversity, but awareness about diversity of thought. TCKs may look like everyone else, but have so much more to offer about their perspectives of the world. I personally felt validated in my own work for TCKs, and the articles and presentations I have done. I would gladly do more – just ask! (To see a listing of workshops I have led, see http://www.rebeccagrappo.com/presentations.html)

The other point that Ruth made is that diversity of thought and experience goes far beyond just TCKs – she talks about how few of us fit into any particular “box” anymore. She used the term “Cross-Cultural Kids (CCKs)” to show how truly multicultural people are in today’s world. This would include TCKs, and domestic TCKs. Ruth used President Barack Obama as an example of someone who would be able to draw from many of these categories – he is a TCK, bicultural, biracial, a child of an immigrant, an educational CCK (he attended a local school in Indonesia by day and returned to his home culture by night), and is the child of a minority. Did I leave anything out? If you are interested in reading more about his example, Ruth wrote an article “Obama’s Third Culture Team” that I have put on my website, along with other resources about TCKs, at http://www.rebeccagrappo.com/resources.html#tck.

The most important point for us to take away from this is that kids who have had cross-cultural experiences have the ability to empathize, communicate, and connect with other people. They can use their multicultural experiences to bring perspective and curiosity to the world around them. What a waste it would be for us to ignore these powerful gifts.