International workers’ kids live a life of diversity and adventure. Being raised in an environment different than their passport country, they are shaped through the richness of their cross-cultural experiences, lifestyles, and mobile transitions.
“Third Culture Kid” Defined
These missionary kids (MKs) are a subset of what’s known as Third Culture Kids (TCKs), a phrase coined by Dr. Ruth Hill Unseem, an American Sociologist in the 1960’s. It describes someone who has spent a good part of their developmental years outside their parents’ culture. These years are significant because their personal and cultural identity is being shaped. Relationship is built to all cultures, yet there’s no full ownership of any. This lack of ownership provides TCKs with a sense of belonging “everywhere and nowhere” simultaneously.
As a TCK, growing up in Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Canada, I was too Canadian to be Malaysian, yet too Chinese Malaysian to feel like I fit in Canada. Add the British influence at boarding school and my teen years in Hong Kong, and I was a mixed bag of all these cultures.
Though elements of each culture are included in a TCK’s life experience, there is a ‘neither/nor’ sense in any one of them. The place of belonging is in relationship to others who have gone through this process. Namely, other TCKs. Get a bunch of TCKs together, any mix of missionary kids (MKs), immigrant children, military, and diplomatic or business kids living abroad and there is a quick and deep connection!
Advantages of Growing up Globally
The TCK global life is rich and full. Three of many advantages are:
A Global Mindset
A global mindset is the awareness and understanding of the wider world and a person’s place in it. It develops naturally in TCKs due to at least three influences:
Cross-Cultural Enrichment – Cultures that enrich a TCK include their countries and neighbourhoods, schools, expat communities, and international church culture. TCKs are taught different lifestyles, customs, and belief systems. This builds curiosity and sensitivity. They realize different is okay; it is to be celebrated, and there is an appreciation for other cultures and varieties of people. Tolerance to diversity, inclusion, and respect for others is developed.
Looking back, I took so much for granted, blind to the fact that my friends had different skin colours, accents, and backgrounds. I am still very open-minded when it comes to humanity and am more empathetic and understanding when it comes to other cultures than most of my peers. (Teresa, 23 years, MK)
Travel – The privilege of exploring the world by visiting and learning from different landscapes, ethnic groups, cuisines, art, architecture, and more, is a large part of TCK life. It impacts learning in every way. MKs get to travel to countries most Canadians only dream about.
Multilingualism – Learning a new language comes naturally for children under six and is easier for school-age children than adults. Speaking the native tongue of their host country makes assimilation easier. Being fluent in another language is such an asset.
Our youngest, born in Indonesia, understood both Bahasa Indonesia (the common trade language) as well as Javanese, unique to the people of the island, by age three. It took us three years to speak the trade language moderately and we only learned simple greetings in Javanese.
Often, because of their global mindset, God uses adult TCKs (ATCKs) worldwide in all areas of society―family, education, media, government and politics, non-government organizations (NGOs), science and technology, business and commerce, entertainment, arts and culture, and mission organizations. With globalization, opportunities abound for TCKs because they have been intensely exposed to multiple cultures, can more easily navigate a diverse workforce, and work effectively on culturally diverse teams. I personally know MKs who are bringing God’s Kingdom into various arenas of society through their giftings. For example, I know a child/teen psychologist working in Alberta who spends 60% of his time with Indigenous families on reserves. He was an MK who, as a kid, had such compassion that he would take off his shirt and give it to a beggar child.
Some other examples include an MK, born in Russia, who is an award-winning international artist based in Ontario, and significantly influencing the art world. I also know a manager working with the federal government who endeavours to make sure all First Nations children living in Canada can access the products, services and supports as needed within her province (Jordan’s Principle). Then there is also a skilled IT working with a business in Dubai, who grew up as an MK in Nepal. Many adult MKs I know work as teachers or principals in both international schools and mission schools.
At the time of writing, in my denomination, nine percent of full-time international workers (IWs) are ATCKs; and also currently, 88 TCKs are growing up globally with their parents.
Resilience
Resilience is a common characteristic among TCKs, which develops over a lifespan. Factors lending themselves to TCK resilience include:
Adaptability – TCKs are pushed out of their comfort zone as they face many transitions. Like chameleons, they observe their surroundings and new people, changing their “colour” of behaviour to adapt, flex, and blend in. They quickly pick up on cultural cues, body language, and attitudes. TCKs learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. They learn to take risks others might not.
Upon leaving Malaysia at age six, for home assignment, I dextrously handled chopsticks, greeted others by bowing slightly with palms together, NOT making eye contact with adults, and used ONLY my right hand for passing or receiving from another person. I knew more about East Indian, Chinese, and Malaysian culture than I did my Canadian culture.
Problem-Solving Skills –A growing capacity to face the unfamiliar and deal with the unexpected is uniquely given to the TCK. They learn there is more than one way to assess and find a solution to a challenge. They think outside the box and learn resourcefulness. Problem-solving includes troubleshooting, brainstorming, and engaging others for collaboration and creative solutions.
I am fairly adept at recognising cues in other cultures as well as my own. I know that sometimes it’s not what you say but how you say it that matters. It’s a result of soaking up different cultures, people and places as a child. (Dillan, ATCK)
Social and Emotional Intelligence – TCKs can become skillful at picking up societal cues. Social and emotional intelligence is built within a network of supportive and nourishing relationships. Mission community allows MKs diverse conversations with adults. Communicating across cultures develops observational skills and teaches TCKs to flex their communication style to fit the situation. As a result, they rate higher in compassion and empathy than their mono-cultural counterparts.
God has instilled resilience in all of us; however, it is not discovered or developed until it is revealed through great stress and challenge. MKs have ample opportunity in both!
Relationships
TCKs value relationships as they offer significance, security, and a place of belonging. These are found with:
Friends – Home is not a place, but rather it’s people for many TCKs. Friendships are made with kids from many places.
I can travel to pretty much any country in the world and see old friends from my childhood. I have a wealth of memories scattered across continents and my life holds an imprint of multiple cultures. (Cici Haynes, ATCK writer)
TCKs are naturally drawn to finding common ground and quickly assess who is worth investing a friendship in. As a result, there is an urgency to develop and enjoy fellowship before they or the other move.
When we moved to Cambodia, our ten-year-old son was very fearful. It didn’t help that UN troops were there to keep peace. Ryan developed a friendship with Tim, who had been there four years. He was a ‘cultural broker,’ showing Ryan how to be comfortable in the space of ‘foreign.’ Ryan’s panic attacks disappeared. A year later, Ryan accompanied Tim’s family to Australia for three weeks. When we repatriated to Canada, Tim came to stay with us for a summer. What kid, growing up in Canada, gets that opportunity?
Others in the mission community become adopted extended families. MKs play well with all, no matter the age difference. Often older MKs mentor younger ones naturally.
My most significant friendship as an MK was with a guy three years older than I. We became close friends, even though he had a girlfriend. He encouraged and championed me. His voice and influence significantly impacted those awkward teen years.
Local neighbours are curious about the new foreign family. Countless friendships can be developed with neighbours as missionary families play in the local park, join in sports games, or walk in the neighbourhood. TCKs are natural ‘bridge builders.’
Family – The one constant within an IW family is their own family unit. Moving into unfamiliar situations in a new country can cause significant strain. With the broader network of support systems (friends and extended family in Canada) distant and in a different time zone, the family is forced to help each other adapt. As a result, they spend significantly more time together, connecting and developing memories through shared experiences. Investing in effective communication, conflict resolution skills, and teaching children to live well cross-culturally will enhance family strength and bonding.
We’re more friends than anything in my family. Our shared experience of moving drew us closer together because you don’t have that wider network around you. You draw in and share in a non-hierarchical way that’s probably outside the norm. We have so many amazing, shared experiences no other family has. (Alex, TCK from Indonesia)
Faith in God – TCKs have a front-row seat when it comes to seeing God work in miraculous ways through healing, providing for the poor, and transforming lives. As they observe the unique personality of the Body of Christ in their host culture, they open to different expressions of faith.
We encouraged our kids to be a part of our ministry where they felt comfortable. This taught them service and value in Christ at a young age. Our ministry was enriched because we served as a family and their faith was made tangible. (Kim, IW Mom)
Questions such as “Why are they poor and we aren’t?” and “why do bad things happen to innocent people?” are often wrestled with earlier in the life of an MK. Seeing adults in the mission community living in dependence on God also impacts the MK. Though each faith journey is different, God is grace and wastes no experience, painful or good, to express His faithfulness, love, and pursue a relationship with us.
A powerful source of influence in the life of MKs is relationships. They enrich, teach, and inspire while each brings rich and rewarding lives.
Challenges of Growing up outside One’s Passport Country
Reading the advantages above, parents may exclaim, “Sign us up!” There are, however, challenges any parent would be wise to ponder and learn how best to help their TCKs navigate.
Education is frequently a fear factor for parents contemplating pursuing missions. According to International Christian Schools’ (ICS) research, international schools provide education to more than 3.8 million children worldwide. TCKs have wide and varied options, including international, mission, boarding or national schools, distance and online learning, or homeschooling. Research reveals TCKs are, for the most part, well above average academically upon returning to their passport countries. Children with special needs deserve further investigation as to the best schooling and support in the host culture.
Two challenges impacting TCKs are:
Frequent Change and Transition – IW families navigate three influential transitions: relocation, re-entry for home assignment, and repatriation. Multiple stressors arise, including:
- The stripping of support systems, safety around the familiar, and a sense of significance from being known by those they are leaving.
- Changes in routines, roles, relationships, and cultural rules.
- Returning to their passport country for home leave/assignment is temporary - two months to a year. It’s exciting during the honeymoon stage; however, “home” has changed, and so has the TCK.
Suniya Luthar, in her writing on Resilience & Vulnerability in Childhood Adversities, states, “The major risk factors for children tend to lie within chronic and transitional events rather than acute risks.”
Because of frequent relocations, the word “home” can be a difficult concept. Here is how a seven-year-old MK put in when introducing himself at The Alliance Canada’s Re-Entry Camp I directed during a Home Ministries Seminar, “My name is Peter. Hi and bye.”
Peter was so used to having people come and go that he added “bye” because he knew this person would also eventually be gone. Everything can change in a plane ride for the TCK.
At seven, I moved to Kenya with my family. Looking back, this move and the many moves that followed had a huge impact on me as a person. I was uprooted and had to leave everything behind. On Friday I was in Canada; on Tuesday I was at school in Kenya. (Charles, age 26)
With every move comes culture shock and stress. Most children are more able to cope with change than adults, yet this stress can leave a child disorientated because of the unfamiliar and loss of control. Change of surroundings, from climate extremes to a new living space, an unknown language, foreign foods, smells, sounds, and strange creatures bombard a child’s senses. The more prepared a child is, the better they will adapt, yet it takes time, patience, understanding, and love as you go through change together as a family.
Some transitions are like having the TCKs security blanket ripped to shreds before their eyes. Others are easier, neater, and shorter. The best outcome through transition is adding colour and vibrancy to their lives, developing resilience and working through the pain it brings at their current developmental stage of life.
Paradoxical Living – TCKs are partially the result of a paradox of enriching and complicated experiences. This includes adapting to a life lived in different cultures, even before their own identity is developed. Paradoxical living is experienced in:
- Relationships – On one hand, TCKs have friends from around the world. On the other, they can lack close relationships. They may not be the ones moving, but many of their friends are mobile, so maintaining relationships can be challenging. The same is true with extended family. Connection needs intentionality. Celebrating seasonal holidays, birthdays, and achievements will be done through technology. The younger the child, the more present to place they are. The older the child, the more they desire connection to peers. Contact with grandparents, aunties, and uncles are missed, yet ‘replaced’ with local “mission family,” as already mentioned. Our children called adults in our mission ‘uncles and aunties’ and they had a ‘grandma’ in Cambodia. It was mutual because her grandchildren, in Canada, were our children’s age. It filled a vacant spot in all their lives.
- Places and Experiences – TCKs experience familiarity with the customs of their host country yet may feel out of place in their passport country. Church life is very different in passport and host countries. Cultural rules MKs learn in their host country can be dissimilar in their passport country, for example: Some have an intuitive understanding of world geography, yet the provinces of Canada are not known.
- Some may forget Canadians go into a bathroom rather than find a bush.
- They may wear flip-flops year-round in Canada because socks and shoes are foreign to them.
- Laws are merely a suggestion in some countries, and police cannot be trusted.
- Some can easily navigate complex transport systems but not learn to drive until they are in their late teens.
TCKs are citizens of everywhere and nowhere. Home is nowhere and everywhere. Airports are a place of transit, yet many TCKs identify with Olaf:
Airports are a place in my heart. I saw a banner once asking: ‘where do you go when you say you are going home,’ and my immediate thought was the airport. (Olaf, TCK from Norway)
- Feelings – Any child or teen experiences a paradox of feelings; however, for the TCK, it tends to be more extreme and frequent. Here are some quotes from MKs I have debriefed over the years: I love the extreme adventure and hate the huge boredom in moves.
- I feel crappy and happy – 10/10 for both.
- I can feel very safe and very vulnerable.
- I adapt easily but I don’t connect deeply.
- Sometimes the pain is so great and other times the excitement is euphoric.
- I have complete confidence one hour, and the next, I am afraid and want to hide.
- I fit everywhere, yet don’t really fit anywhere and I can feel very alone in a group.
- I care deeply about what others think and at other times I don’t give a _ _ _ _!
- As they work through the complexities of their growing up years, they can “harness the advantages and disarm the hazards” (Michele Pheonix), bringing valuable assets that this paradoxical life offers into their adult years. They require help and guidance in this process.
Issues Adult TCKs Face
![]()
The two most impactful issues ATCKs face are identity challenges and unresolved grief.
Identity Challenges - Where is home? Where do I belong? Who am I?
The hardest question for a TCK to answer is, “Where are you from?” This causes a scurry of panicked brain activity, “What do they mean? Where was I born, or where am I living now?” When TCKs return to their passport country to repatriate for college, they look like Canadians and are presumed by Canadians to automatically know cultural rules. Except they don’t. They look, dress, and talk like Canadians; however, they identify with other places internally. This can lead to a sense of insecurity and even identity crisis. They are not trying to be different; they are simply being another culture’s (or mix of cultures) definition of ‘normal.’
In Africa I knew I wasn’t African and I thought it was because I was American. Now, I’m in America and I found out I’m not really like the Americans either. Who am I? I wonder. (Ruth Van Reken, co-author of “Growing Up Among World’s”)
When TCKs do not have support in re-entering their home culture or understanding the dynamics of their lifestyle, they may conclude something is ‘wrong’ with them because they do not fit in. Sometimes they take on a permanent identity of ‘being different,’ which can have them feeling alone and isolated. It takes time and resources for ATCKs to come to grips with the true core of who they are, created in the image of God.
Home for the TCK lies in people and experiences. It is the sounds, sights, smells, savours, and the feel of textures in all the places and people they have loved and lived. It is the agony of goodbyes and the adventure of travel. It is the many forced transitions. Home for the MK is, as Michele Pheonix so beautifully wrote, “mixed and muddled and meaningful in its indescribable life-defining homeness.”
Growing up with multiple cultural cues influencing their self-concept and identity, ATCKs often report feeling rootless and restless. This can play out in their choices as adults with work and relationships. In addition, there can be an ache for home.
When I fly to Asia, I am so excited… I am going ‘home.’ However, when I get there, it doesn’t feel quite like home. Then, I look forward to returning to Canada, where my homebase has been for decades, only to find myself feeling a little out of sorts. It’s not quite like home either. (B., an ATCK)
Unresolved Grief - The Pain of Continual Losses
By the age of eighteen, most MKs will have experienced at least eight major moves (Interaction International). Add to this living in a transient and multicultural community, which results in a significant loss. According to Ruth Van Reken, a TCK researcher, author, speaker, and expert, “unresolved grief is the most urgent mental health issue facing TCKs—both as children and as the adults they will become.”1
The challenge with TCK loss is that it is ambiguous, intangible, and occurs without closure or clear understanding. This kind of loss leaves one searching for answers; it complicates and delays the grieving process. So what does this look like for the MK? A loss of
- familiar physical surroundings;
- security in knowing how things work in a culture and what to expect;
- lifestyle – passport country being very different than host culture;
- significance in roles and status – being known, understood, and celebrated;
- identity – (Who am I? Where do I belong? What are my true colours?);
- social networks – sports teams, youth groups, classmates, neighbourhood kids;
- dreams dashed and what could have been if they had stayed― playing in the band, developing soccer skills, been picked for the year-end drama performance…;
- a predictable world, comfort, and stability.
To grieve loss is to feel the pain of what was taken because it was rich, full, and beautiful. For the MK, questions around loss are often directly tied to God and their faith because He called their parents to be international workers and have them live this life.
An MK, who was part of ReBoot (https://more.outreach.ca/What-We- Do/Retreats/ReBoot) as a nineteen-year-old returning for university, expressed his grief this way, “I’ve lost my home, my security, my church, my friends, my job, my relationships….It continues to haunt me that I will never see the places that I roamed in the same light again, nor will I breathe the air as someone who is planted there. I lost myself in the convoluted mission of leaving (my host country). There is no way to express how lost I feel, and I don’t think anything can change that. No amount of crying or talking will heal my soul.”
This is raw, profound grief, two months after returning to Canada, alone after leaving all he knew back in his host country of Brazil. He has since graduated from university, married, and has found his place in Canada through relationships, work, and volunteering with refugees from South America.
Loss after loss experienced while growing up can bring the normal human defence mechanisms of denial and detachment to the pain experienced, especially when children and teens are not given the opportunity, or know-how, to express it. This often shows up in minimizing, rationalizing, and avoiding their feelings. The challenge is that it will come out sometime and keep showing up until it is processed! Thus, the issues of unrecognized and unresolved grief play a significant role in the life of the ATCK.
When we (MKs) understand our losses and their impact on our lives—through the process of discerning what they are, how they shape our view of God and self, and how they can lead us both to greater strength and dependence— only then can something beneficial and beautiful come from the bitter pill of the goodbyes inherent to the life of an MK. (Michele Pheonix)
hundreds of IW families, it is evident each TCK is unique. Their experiences are perceived differently, even when going through the same circumstances as a family. However, by far, most TCKs turn out as capable, responsible, confident, and contributing members of this globe. Their lives are richer because they have experienced the world. It is worth it.
Writing as someone who has lived this TCK/ATCK life, I would not trade it for anything! I have lived an adventure like no other and am privileged. It’s impossible to make sense of all I have experienced, challenging and complicated, abundant and joyful. I look back, grateful for all the gifts of growing up as an MK; what I have lived, learned, who I have become, and what I have been able to give back to this globe. The years of processing unresolved grief were at times excruciating. Yet, with God’s illumination and grace, the scattered and painful pieces of me were brought together into a beautiful picture of who I am as an image-bearer of Christ.
Taken from an article and talk that Ruth Van Reken gave for
https://www.crossculturalkid. org/who-are-cross-cultural-kids/ called.
Third Culture Kids: Prototypes for Understanding Other Cross-Cultural Kids