Third Culture Kids

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(TCKs)

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Karin Holley

November 9, 2015

What is a Third Culture Kid (TCK)?

David Pollock developed the following definition:

A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years (0-18 years) outside the parents’ culture. The TCK frequently builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture may be assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.

Time where identity and worldview are formed

Reasons for restlessness and identity issues

Connection with other TCKs

My Story

Your Story

Third Culture Kids

By Ruth Van Reeken and David Pollock

2009

Who is a Cross-Cultural Kid (CCK)?

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A cross-cultural kid (CCK) is a person who is living or has lived in—or meaningfully interacted with—two or more cultural environments for a significant period of time during childhood (up to age 18).

Similarities

CCK and TCK

• Cross-cultural
• Highly mobile

TCK

• Identify with a system “hotel, small business, ngo, missionary, etc)
• Expectation of going back “home” - leaving again

Questions related to identity and culture

Who am I?

Where do I belong?

Where am I from?

Clashes between who we are expected to be and who we are

Striving for cultural balance

What you see is not what you get.

Cultural Influences

Cultural Identity in Relation to Surrounding Culture

Reactions to the Surrounding Cultures

Chameleons - try to conform wherever they are

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SAME IDENTITY

Reactions to the Surrounding Cultures

Screamers - try to rebel and be different

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DIFFERENT IDENTITY

Reactions to the Surrounding Cultures

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Wall-flowers - don’t engage for for fear of that others discover they are different

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NON-IDENTITY

High Mobility

• Expect change - the only constant
• Experience transitions more often than others (involvement, leaving, transition, entering, reinvolvement).
• International schools - friends leaving all the time
• educational CCK - daily commute between home/school cultures

Unresolved Grief

• Paradox of feeling sad about leaving and excitement about the new destination.
• What is loved and lost is hidden, un-named, unrecognized, unresolved
• Loss of a world, status, possessions, lifestyle, relationships, loss of role models, systems, regrets of a past that never happened, and a past that happened.
• Lack of permission to grieve, lack of time to process, lack of understanding and awareness, lack of comfort

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It’s like a loved one dies… or worse.

“She had no idea that the day her parents and siblings returned to Nigeria for four years and left her in the United States was the day her family as she had always known it - died. Never again did all six children live with two parents as a family unit for any extended period of time. As she wrote, Ruth allowed herself to experience for the first time the grief of that moment twenty-six years before - a grief almost as deep as she would have experienced had she gotten a phone call that her family had been killed in a car wreck.”

Relationships

• Large number, often all over the world
• Quick to form friendships at a deeper level
• Surrogate family
• Value friendships - connection with the past
• Fear of intimacy - too many frequent and painful goodbyes
• Refusing to care - detachment
• Releasing too quickly
• Emotional flattening

Personal Identity

Uneven maturity - wise about the world and with adults vs. delayed adolescence and rebellion, lack of freedom, opportunities, figuring out rules, loneliness, anger often towards parents.

System Identity - like it, conform, rebel

World - changing faster than ever, more globally connected

Benefits

Challenges

• Confused loyalties
• Reality can be painful
• Ignorant of “home” culture,
• Identity issues - who am I?
• More prejudice
• No choice, no investment, no risk, no fail
• Blame others, mistrust authority
• Perceived/real arrogance
• False assumptions

• Expanded world view
• Experience the world
• Cross-culturally rich
• Adaptable - chameleon
• Less prejudice
• Seize the day, live in the NOW
• Authority can give structure

Benefits

Challenges

• Socially slow, new rules, insecure
• Lack of a mother tongue, missing specialized terminology, turning against a mother-tongue
• Rootless - where is home? Everywhere and no where
• Restless - present is never enough, difficult to hold jobs, relationships, avoid conflict

• Cross-cultural skills
• Observational skills - rules
• Social skills
• Linguistic skills
• Confident
• Independent

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Parents

• Family needs (medical, special education, personality)
• Support system
• Both parents in favor?
• Parent-to-Parent relationship
• How is stress handled by individual family members?
• Take advantage of the cross-cultural opportunities
• Educational opportunities
• Preparation, helping children through transitions
• Parent-to-Child relationship - children need to be valued and included in decisions, special, protected, comforted

Questions?

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Stories?

Thank you for coming!

To summarize...

References

Carlbom, D. Screaming. Digital image. Flikr. N.p., 23 Apr. 2009. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.

Chameleon. Digital image. Pixabay. N.p., 29 Mar. 2014. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.

DeVitt, R. Left Out. Digital image. Pixabay. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.

Fuzz. Wing. Digital image. Pixabay. N.p., 8 Aug. 2013. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.

Holt, C. Girls. Digital image. Pixabay. N.p., 25 Sept. 2014. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.

Pollock, D. C., and R. E. Van Reken. Third Culture Kids - Growing up Among Worlds. Boston: Nicholas Brealey, 2009. Print.

Stacey218. Bedroom. Digital image. Pixabay. N.p., 29 May 2006. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.

The Case of the Boy on Holiday. Digital image. Flikr. N.p., 3 July 2013. Web. 7 Nov. 2015.

Third Culture Kids. Dir. A. Alegria. YouTube. N.p., 13 Sept. 2010. Web. 7 Nov. 2015.

Neither Here nor There - Teaser. Dir. E. Yamazaki. YouTube. N.p., 23 Mar. 2012. Web. 8 Nov. 2015.

Yourdon, E. Jonathan, I Think You're Old Enough to Have an Umbrella of Your Own Now... Digital image. Flikr. N.p., 13 Dec. 2009. Web. 7 Nov. 2015.