What is a TCK?

I am no expert in sociology and I am not a TCK myself (um... confession time... my first trip overseas was at the age of 17!).

I am an enthusiastic mother, and my daughter happens to be both a TCK and she is adopted.  As such I have a keen interest in raising my daughter to think global and help her accept and appreciate her unique place in the world.

To this end I have written a quick summary of my understanding of what defines a TCK's and some of the potential ups and downs of being OR raising a TCK!

Ruth E. Van Reken is the co-author of Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds which is the quintessential reference book about growing up or spending significant time abroad.  She has an 'OK' website which is a good starting point for anyone interested in reading a little about TCK's.

In short a Third Culture Kid as defined by Van Reken is... "A person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents' culture.  The TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures while not having full ownership in any.  Although elements of each culture are assimilated into the TCK's life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of a similar background"

In general, the characteristics of a TCK are defined as... 

•          Highly Mobile
•          Travel is a big part of the lifestyle (holidays etc)
•          Grow up to be politically aware – well versed on international politics etc
•          Multi-lingual, can think and feel in several languages
•          Establish friendships/relationships quickly, are extremely accepting of new people in their lives
•          Prefer to lead a “global” life as adults and associate with others like them (ie other Cross Cultural kids/families/friends.
•          Privileged – tend to live within a high socio-economic environment (helpers, drivers, education opportunities etc)
•          Can hold conversations with adults and are articulate in this regard
•          Mature social skills
•          Are extremely accepting of other cultures and culturally enriched in this regard
•          Adapt quickly to new places and faces
•          More welcoming of new faces to their own circle
•          Educated (much higher percentage of TCK’s have 2^nd and 3^rd degrees than in the general population

The potential challenges faced by many TCK’s include…

•          Confused about where “home” is… lack a sense of belonging to their parent country
•          Unsure about their cultural identity
•          Difficulty making and sticking to a decision
•          Sense of loss/grief (moving on from family, friends, community)
•          Difficulty forming relationships (I have read that TCK’s tend to marry in their 30’s and tend to have kids of their own much later in life)
•          Restless, can become frequent movers themselves
•          Feeling that so much is out of their control in their life… and in the end we’ll move away anyway!

So it’s not all frequent flyer points, curry and elephant rides hey!

Interestingly Ms. Van Reken has of more recent times, called for an expansion of the TCK discussion to include a broader group... and has coined the label "Cross Cultural Kid" or (predictably) CCK's heralding it the "new normal".  Her thinking is that by broadening our frame of reference to therefore include all the groups (see below) the impact/or potential impact of our increasingly global and transient populations on culture and society is even more apparent.

• Traditional TCKs –Children who move into another culture with parents due to a parent’s career choice
• Bi/multi-cultural/ and/or bi/multi-racial children —Children born to parents from at least two cultures or races
• Children of immigrants —Children whose parents have made a permanent move to a new country where they were not originally citizens
• Children of refugees —Children whose parents are living outside their original country or place due to unchosen circumstances such as war, violence, famine, other natural disasters
• Children of minorities —Children whose parents are from a racial or ethnic group which is not part of the majority race or ethnicity of the country in which they live.
• International adoptees —Children adopted by parents from another country other than the one of that child’s birth
• “Domestic” TCKs —Children whose parents have moved in or among various subcultures within that child’s home country.

I am personally down with this!  My daughter fits more than one of the definitions above.

http://blog.crossculturalkid.org/