As I sat in my high school auditorium with my graduation cap bobby-pinned precariously towards the back of my head (for fear that it would mess up my bangs), I silently recited the prayer that a thousand graduating teenage girls had prayed before me: Dear God, please don't let me trip.  It seems trivial now, worrying about a little trip no one would remember, but it's important you understand that at the time I had no idea what true embarrassment was, that tripping on stage is small beans compared my naked toddler yelling Shut Your Pie Hole from the upstairs window—at passing neighbors—at night, with the ceiling lights on.  But since I didn't have a crystal ball or a whole lot of common sense, I worried, too consumed by my upcoming stage appearance to listen to my Asian Studies teachers' long-winded speech, one so shocking that to this day I’m positive it resides above Singapore American Schools' auditorium ceiling like an big, black, ominous cloud:  “You have been living in a world that is not real; a bubble, a fantasy. Begin preparing today for life tomorrow-- in the real world."    At this point, anyone seated up front who had ever once lived in the "real world" was easy to spot with their plastered grins and muffled giggles.  It didn't take a rocket scientist to realize Mr. Asian Studies Teacher was onto something.  By senior year at Singapore American School, I’d spent more time living overseas than in my native U.S., jumping from continent to continent with maids to cook, clean and occasionally do my Spanish homework.  There were no high school jobs at the local Dairy Queen, no driver’s license, only champagne proms and weekends at the beach in Hong Kong aboard private "junks".  A bubble sure, but my life was not uncommon - thousands of expatriate "Third Culture Kids" shared the life, the fun and tribulations of expatriate youth living abroad.  That our lives were in a "bubble" was news to us.  But it was only as Mr. Baker’s graduation speech wound down that it dealt its hardest blow:  As adults, sixty percent of your graduating class will return to a life as expatriates.  Like, when pigs fly. So here I sit fourteen years after that fateful speech: a graduation statistic, a second generation “expat wife,” a  "Third Culture Kid" raising three of my own and the chances are if you're reading this, you are too.  What is a Third Culture Kid?  In the early 1960’s, doctors Ruth and John Useem coined the term Third Culture Kid (TCK) to describe a population that’s growing bigger every year and that has special advantages and problems:  "[A] person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents' culture, a third culture kid, builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any,” they wrote.  “Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the third culture kid's life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of the same background." (Pollock & van Reken, 2001, p. 19).  What they mean to say is, a child who is taken from the parents’ home country to a new one adopts the new culture while keeping the old, and by blending the two, creates his own "third culture" and no two third cultures are alike.

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Third Culture Kids are not bound by oceans or nationalities, and tend to be more fearless at trying new things than their home-country counterparts.  They are likely to become self-confident, empathetic, and flexible people who see the world as being much less limited than kids of just one culture. 

I am Nomad, Hear Me Roar
Forty years and almost two generations later, TCK researchers have changed their tune a bit, most agreeing that children do not need to spend a "significant" part their developmental years away from their native country to reap the benefits of a third culture; many are influenced by their overseas experiences with as little as just one year abroad.  According to recent research, children who spend just one year overseas are four times more likely to gain a bachelor’s degree than their domestic peers, and 40 percent of them will go on to earn a master’s degree.  Sixty percent return to a life overseas, 80 percent with a second language, working in jobs that require travel and reflect their lives spent abroad.  They become newspaper and magazine writers, speakers, counselors, teachers, professors, volunteers, active church members, leaders, business people—jobs that utilize both the Third Culture Kids high level of education and well-practiced people skills.  And as a reflection of both their creativity and risk taking from life overseas, some of these young people grow up to join the other 1/3 of the adult TCK population as self-employed people, presidents of their own companies.  Most keep their passport current and are eager to live abroad again. 

As far as their personal lives go, sixty percent of TCK later marry, two out of three marry only once and not until after the age of twenty-five.  They have been found to incorporate their international experiences with raising their children by instilling the values that they themselves learned as expat kids living overseas: respect for other people no matter what the race, creed or culture of the individual and embracing the differences of others. 

Houston: We Have a Problem 

Why Re-entry is Difficult for the Common TCK 
Most TCK returning to their passport country after an extended period of living abroad will tell you that the transition “home” was more difficult than the role they lived as an expatriate, as they find they no longer share the same culture as their native peers.   In many instances, the Third Culture Kid feels the need to understate their overseas experiences for fear of others perceiving them as "bragging."  As a result, they often endure a certain degree of isolation and loneliness - culture shock but in reverse. 

Ruth Hill Useem noted that "a number of our respondents continue to feel rootless, alienated, and unable to make commitments to people or places.”  And many TCK, feeling out of sync with "real life" back in their home country, do go through a period of experiencing a certain degree of depression.   According to a report published by International School Services, “The answer to the question of how long it takes them (TCK) to adjust to American life is: they never adjust.  They adapt, they find niches, they take risks, and they fail and pick themselves up again.  They succeed in jobs they have created to fit their particular talents, they locate friends with whom they can share some of their interests, but they resist being encapsulated.  Their camouflaged exteriors and understated ways of presenting themselves hide the rich inner lives, remarkable talents, and often strongly held contradictory opinions on the world at large and the world at hand.” 

A common mistake parents make that often times makes repatriating difficult for their international college bound child is not preparing them for "real life" - how to cook, do laundry, recognize mold in the shower, how to get rid of the mold, how to drive, how to open a bank account and finally, perhaps one of the most difficult to adhere to.....(drum roll please).... how to stick to a budget!

The Delayed or Prolonged Adolescence 
An indifferent attitude towards change is another challenge that TCK sometimes face from years of remaining in a transient state, where staying committed to a job, school or relationships can be difficult, added to the fact that many TCK lack the simple life skills most American kids learn at age sixteen, many which I've already mentioned above: acquiring a drivers license, getting a job, making a bed, knowing when to change the oil in the car and (my personal favorite), how to cook an edible meal. 

But sometimes the TCK in her twenties goes through something a little more than the average, a "prolonged adolescence" as TCK researchers have coined the term, where the Third Culture Kid is stuck on the perpetual question of "what am I going to do with my life?" with indecisiveness being a prevailing theme along with having "champagne tastes on beer income (or no incomes)", as Dr. Ann Baker Cottrell of San Diego State University and Drs. John Useem and Ruth Hill Useem put it in their Third Culture Kids: Focus of Major Study report. 

Other Third Culture Kids also in their twenties experience a "delayed adolescence," a time or period in their lives when they are satisfied with doing nothing (or very little) or perhaps steer away from social contact and become deeply depressed from the isolation.  Rash life decisions are another earmark of TCK going through delayed adolescence, sometimes dropping out of college to pursue more "romantic" ventures like writing poetry in Paris or fishing in Alaska, traveling on to new and exotic locations, while all time being supported by a healthy monetary allowance from parents or a trust fund. 

But despite the challenges of being raised away from their native country, ask many of today's adult TCK  if they regret the time spent overseas and their response will be almost always be unanimous: in spite of the challenges and hardships, they are thankful for their experiences abroad.

Support Our Kids: Easing the Transition Abroad 
Children, no matter where they come from all need the same thing: to be happy.  So how can parents and schools help make life for TCK easier?  And what can the TCK do to help himself? 

Schools can:

*  Give the TKC an automatic friend, a “buddy” to help them become oriented with the surroundings, students and schedules.

*  Without embarrassing or pressuring the TCK, try to take advantage of the different life and cultural experiences they bring to school
    by for example, having them give talks to geography, social studies and language classes.

*  Understand and be sensitive to their feelings

*  Encourage and open dialog with the TCK parents and the TCK themselves

Parents can:

*  Encourage (and help facilitate) their TCK to get involved in school and extracurricular activities, as well as hobbies. 
    Hobbies and other interests will connect them to people all over the world

*  Ask probing questions about their TCK’s daily life and listen hard to the answers, looking for the area for which they need
    the most support

*  Keep family traditions alive—make family dinner time a number-one priority, even if one parent is traveling

*  Know where your kids are and who they’ve made friends with

*  Set up play dates (when age appropriate) at your home with classmates, especially during long school breaks when new
    friendships may be forgotten. 

*  Be active at their school. Whether it is as a co-leader in Girl Scouts or a lunch with your TCK once a week, your presence will
    mean a lot to your child and makes your face a familiar one to teachers and staff. 

*  Keep a good attitude about the country you’re in, new or native, even during the challenging times. Bad attitudes rub off 
    and children are intuitive people. 

*  Take advantage of cross cultural training and if it's not offered, ask for it.  And consider counseling for your child, if needed, 
    when returning to your home country.

*  Try to keep things as "normal" as possible.   Create new “normal’s” if you have to, but the point should be to keep some 
    predictability in your children’s life, no matter the age.  Everyone can benefit from some predictability.

*  Train then now.   Assign chores and teach them the skills they'll need when they leave home, like cleaning, cooking and laundry. 
   Walk them through on how to create and keep and budget, open a bank account and job interviewing skills.  They'll thank you later
   (so will future roommates and spouses). 

Third Culture Kids can:

*  Get involved in an organization they can identify with. 

*  Find other TKC to befriend and confide in, share stories with, at school, during free time, online

*  Allow themselves six months to adjust to new places, schools, challenges

*  Set personal goals, long term and short term, whether they are in school, sports, hobbies or the future.

*  Make new friends while keeping the old. 

*  Write letters on a lonely day or keep a journal. Blogs are also a great way to reach out to others like themselves 
     and are easy to set up. 

*  Stay in close touch with relatives, certainly parents and siblings, and friends back in their home country. 

*  Do their best to hold on to a positive attitude and hanging around others who share the same frame of mind. 

*  Own where they are by taking that city and country and make it theirs. Ownership gives a sense of belonging no matter where you are. 

Finally, from one Third Culture Kid to another, take pride in your "global nomadness.” Mark Twain put it best: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and most people need it solely on this account. Broad, charitable views of men and other cultures can’t be acquired by vegetating in one corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” 

Three websites dedicated to TCK are: 

www.tckinteract.net/ 

www.interactionintl.org/ 

http://shop.girlscouts.org
 

. Nieto – Fostercaring my grandson in Antigua, Guatemala - You will enjoy sharing this story with your family, friends, and fellow expatriates. Because at its core it is a story about love and the choices that love brings. When Sharon and her husband "dropped out" in late middle age, they sold or stored everything they had and bought a sailboat, eventually, sailing it to Guatemala.But this story becomes as much about adopting as it is about adapting to a new lifestyle. Removed far beyond the day-to-day cares of their previous life, the new expatriates turn their energies again to helping the daughter who calls from Albuquerque and says the heartbreaking words no mother wants to hear from her daughter: “I can’t get pregnant”.  As this captivatingly positive tale progresses to its bittersweet conclusion for this mother and grandmother, she learns more than understanding and compassion as she and her husband work with their daughter to adopt a Guatemalan baby, only to form a special bond of their own while foster caring for their new grandson.