What are Third Culture Kids like?

“Third culture kids (TCKs) are not new, and they are not few. They have been a part of the earth’s population from the earliest migrations. They are normal people with the usual struggles and pleasures of life. But because they have grown up with different experiences from those who have lived primarily in one culture, TCKs are sometimes seen as slightly strange by the people around them.

After more than twenty years of virtually daily interaction with TCKs and their families, we have seen a patterns of behavior or reactions to life emerge that stem from the cross-cultural and high-mobility aspects of their upbringing. As I have shared these observations with TCKs, their parents, teachers and caregivers throughout the world, I have observed a common type of response. Giggles start among the students in one corner of the room. In another, a parent pokes her child in the ribs. Teachers look at each other (and their students) with knowing glances. They all recognize the story. And as I’ve made this presentation to people in many different kinds of organizations and on every continent except Antarctica, a multitude of TCKs have validated that this is, indeed, their story.

Sometimes the third culture experience is unfairly blamed for problems it didn’t generate. At other times it is viewed as a pathology for which therapy is needed and from which one must recover. It is my conviction that being a TCK is not a disease, something from which to recover. It is also not simply okay—it is more than okay. It is a life healthily enriched by this very TCK experience and blessed with significant opportunity for further enrichment.

Since the variety of experience is wide, let’s acknowledge that breadth by recognizing  that for some, growing up as a TCK has been very difficult, for others much easier. Someone whose experience has been close to ideal isn’t in denial for seeing it as so. Someone whose experience has been difficult or painful isn’t a wimp, a whiner, or a spoiled child for acknowledging it as such. And those who have known both are also within the normal range of human experience.”

From the book Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds, Introduction by David C. Pollock, p. xxii.

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