What Losses Do TCKs Experience and What Impact Do They Have?
Photo by Alan Alves on Unsplash
Third Culture Kids (TCKs) are often a forgotten element of cross-cultural life. Moving across an ocean involves so many complexities—finding a rental, learning a language, adjusting to a new environment and culture—that kids can get lost in the shuffle. Not that their parents don’t care. . . but kids are flexible, right? TCKs are especially flexible. They seem to pick up languages more quickly and settle into their new environments. It’s easy to assume that the kids have it handled and just move on, especially when there are so many urgent things demanding your attention.
I’m a TCK raised by TCKs raised by TCKs, in a family with a long history outside the country of our citizenship. Even though growing up overseas helped my parents avoid some pitfalls, there are still many experiences that are common among those of us who have grown up outside of our passport countries. I wanted to know more about those connecting threads, so I sent out a survey to other TCKs to see what losses connect us.
If you are a parent to a TCK or have them in your life, read closely. I discovered valuable insight that helped me understand myself and my friends better—it may help you to support your TCK better, too.
Get to Know the Respondents
Out of 56 responses, nearly half were teenagers, while about a quarter were in their twenties, 22% in their forties, and a few respondents were 60+. Thirty-four percent had lived in the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) and a quarter in South and Central America, with the rest spread across the world. Their experience spans a range from 1959 to the present day, and they lived abroad an average of 14 years, with about 30 living most or all of their childhoods outside of their passport country. The most common experience was in a city or suburb, with only six respondents living in remote locations.
In short, these TCKs had a broad range of experiences across time and across the world. So much for their differences—what losses did they hold in common?
The Losses TCKs Face
The most common loss was friends or family moving away: 52% experienced this often, and 20% did so constantly. After that was instability in the family, community, or country: 50% experienced this either often or constantly. 38% often moved houses, 21% often moved schools, and 9% often moved countries.
Most striking to me, a quarter of respondents felt “out of place, like an outsider,” either often or constantly.
Numbers can be hard to parse. What does this mean?
TCKs often experience instability in their lives. They move, their friends move, their families move. They have to leave people behind and be left behind. All that instability in critical years of childhood leaves you with a feeling of otherness. It makes you feel like you don’t belong.
In a free response, TCKs listed more losses:
Loss of belonging anywhere
Loss of family
Loss of safety
Loss of innocence
Loss of the ability to have safe emotions
Loss of opportunities
Loss of language ability
Loss of safe places to struggle
Loss of culture
Loss of traditions
Loss of friends my own age
Loss of identity
Loss of the ability to maintain close friendships.
All these losses only scratch the surface. Cross-cultural life can bring many blessings and positive experiences, but to exclusively focus on the positives can lead to bottling up grief until it all pours out.
How Do Losses Affect TCKs?
In a free response, 41% of survey respondents mentioned shutting down their emotions, repressing them, bottling them up, or other types of emotional repression. “I shut down in public. I would cry in private,” said one TCK. “I often don’t speak and become very quiet,” said another. “I did not give myself permission to be angry. I did not like feeling sad, so I was more comfortable pretending emotions weren’t a thing,” said a third. One respondent described it as “turtling.”
Many explained that this repression would lead to explosive outbursts of grief or anger, or else simmering resentment. Some mentioned intellectualizing their emotions, some isolated themselves. Other respondents fell into maladaptive daydreaming or disassociation, got erratic sleep, or dealt with addiction, depression, self-harm, eating disorders, or anxiety. Some were able to use therapy, EMDR, journaling, and gratitude to mitigate the effects of their losses and process them well.
In another free response, 46% of TCKs expressed difficulties in relationships, especially friendships. Those difficulties could manifest in not fitting in, holding people at arm’s length, diving in too quickly, holding on too tightly, or other struggles:
“I am very cautious about approaching relationships and vulnerability. Even just the question of ‘Where are you from’ has become something where I’ve had to strategize a response . . .”
“I approach a lot of social situations in my passport culture with fear; fear that I will mess up because I still view myself as an outsider . . . I still feel (ten years into the move) hypervigilant out in public.”
“I had to grow up earlier than most kids, so people always thought I was mature. However, in my adult life, I now see that others are able to relax and have fun in ways that I find difficult or even impossible.”
“I fear losing people and constantly prepare for the potential losses I could experience. I refuse to rely on people for anything.”
“I have an unhealthy attachment to all my friends . . . I would be [so] afraid to lose the relationship that I would do whatever and put up with whatever.”
“I like to dive deep quickly into relationships I think have potential, while also avoiding a breadth of more shallow level friends.”
“I find it difficult to work at relationships that I don’t think will work right away . . . I don’t get upset or that sad about leaving people or having people leave me. It’s just normal.”
“I am much slower to make friends.”
“Because of how many people I’ve had to leave behind, I make friends super easily, yet struggle to make deeper and more meaningful connections.”
“I find it really hard to have deep relationships with people because I’m afraid they’re going to leave.”
“I started to feel like building relationships or putting down roots wasn’t worth the effort because the emotional cost of losing it all over again was too high. To a certain extent, I also felt like I didn’t have control over my life, and it influenced my choices.”
Many expressed feeling out of control and either resisting change or accepting it as a given. Some TCKs longed for roots, while others sought out transient or short-term jobs or relationships because that’s what felt normal.
TCKs experience more transitions and instability than many other children. Each child reacts to their losses differently depending on their personality or family environment (more on that in an upcoming article). But the most common impacts are emotional repression and struggles to maintain healthy relationships, which leads to loneliness.
What Can We Do Now?
TCK life is a strange beast.
I loved growing up in Tunisia, celebrating my birthday by the Mediterranean, walking through my old neighborhood with the bougainvillea climbing over white walls. I loved my neighborhood hanut, the hrathar owner who gave me the best produce, the best bakery in the city being just around the corner. I loved speaking Arabic and hearing it on the street, seeing Roman ruins in odd places, and exploring Europe or the Sahara on vacations. All this, I loved.
And yet, life as a TCK means that you don’t truly fit anywhere. You either become a chameleon or struggle to be one. I experienced more losses in my life than most young people do, and when I moved back to my “home” country for college, it didn’t feel like home. I felt like an imposter.
It helped me to know that my difficulty forming friendships and processing emotions was not uncommon. It helped me to feel less alone. It also helped me to identify patterns and begin to discern healthier ways to handle the losses of TCK life. If you want more solid tips on how to support your TCK child, look out for the second article on this topic.
See Beyond offers TCK resources. If you are looking to help your child process better or to get advice on your specific situation with your child, See Beyond is here for you.
