Most adult TCKs I work with have never listed their moves in order. When they do, they are often surprised by what they find. This is about integration, what writing makes possible, and the choices we have now.
For most, “where are you from?” is everyday conversation. For Third Culture Kids, it is often one of the most challenging questions we face. This past weekend, people from Lithuania, the UK, Germany, France, Finland, Norway, Taiwan, Canada, and all over the United States gathered to talk about that question. That conversation was a…
TCK siblings can grow up in the same family and come away with different childhoods. A reflection on our June call: why siblings diverge, the grief of the one left behind, and being each other’s only witness.
What do you reach for when life gets hard? (Not what you think you should reach for…What you actually reach for.) For some of us, it’s alcohol. For others, it’s work, the kind of relentless busyness that feels productive right up until it doesn’t. It might be food, or screens, or the urgent, consuming search…
All of the Above: Understanding TCK Identity — And Why Chaos Is the Point By Andrea Frey Clark, MS, LPC “Our identity is an anti-identity; the only way we can define ourselves is how we are not.” — TCK interview participant (Walters & Auton-Cuff, 2009) Has anyone ever told you that you’re indecisive? That you…
Most of us became experts at traveling light. We learned early that attachment was complicated — that the things you loved too much would just become heavier to carry, or harder to leave behind. Some of us got good at not getting attached to anything at all. Others held on to one or two things…
Do you remember that last day at your school before another move? The accumulation of unacknowledged losses that we TCKs carry – from friends who faded across time zones to pieces of ourselves left in different countries – creates a unique kind of grief that deserves recognition and healing.
We’re taught to think of home as a point on the map, but for TCKs it’s something else entirely. You don’t need to choose one place to belong or shrink your story to fit in a small box. Home isn’t a location—it’s a lived feeling, and you are allowed to feel at home in yourself.
Our kids are struggling. Online schooling, loss of playdates, lack of interaction with elderly extended family and our own increasing anxiety as parents — there have been so many losses in the past year. Your child may have experienced the loss of a loved one or may have had to move in the midst of…
