BUILDING RESILIENCY
IN GLOBAL NOMADS
MOVING CHILDREN FROM COUNTRY TO COUNTRY IS BOTH CHALLENGING AND REWARDING.
HERE IS A GUIDE TO THE ISSUES OF TRANSITION THAT ARE INVOLVED.
BY REBECCA GRAPPO
A
s the afternoon sun filtered its golden
rays through the curtains, I sat on the
sofa facing a young man earnestly
telling me about his life abroad.
There was pain in his eyes as he
described how he did not feel like he
could connect with his extended family and his peers now that he was home again. He wondered what was wrong with him that made it so difficult to
fit in. I asked him if he had ever heard of Third Culture
Kids. As I explained TCKs to him, the light bulb went on
and I could see a huge weight lift from his shoulders. “You
mean it’s not me? I’m not weird? There’s nothing wrong
with me?” I smiled and told him, “No, you are absolutely
normal. It’s just that you are a classic Third Culture Kid.”
The sense of relief on his face made me both smile and feel
sadness for a young person who had felt so misunderstood.
As Ruth van Reken and the late David Pollack, two of
the foremost experts in the field, wrote in Third Culture
Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds
Rebecca (Becky) Grappo, an educational consultant and FS
spouse, raised three children and sent them all to college while
in the Foreign Service. She specializes in boarding schools
and college planning and is a Certified Educational Planner
and a member of both the Independent Educational
Consultants Association and the National Association of
College Admissions Counselors. A former education and
youth officer in the Family Liaison Office at the Department
of State, she is currently posted with her husband in Muscat.
You can visit her Web site at www.rebeccagrappo.com.
(Nicholas Brealey, 2000): “A Third Culture Kid 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 from each culture
are assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, a sense of
belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.”
If one can generalize about TCKs, they have experienced life overseas, outside of their home cultures and
comfort zones, and feel that their lives have been enriched
by the many diverse experiences they have had. Most of
these young people understand that they now possess a
three-dimensional world view, and have become more
flexible in their thinking as a result of the many transitions
they have made. The typical TCK appreciates diversity
and multiculturalism, and finds life in a place where everyone is the same to be boring. They tend to be more
mature than many of their peers, comfortable with adults
and self-confident. As a result of living in new and changing environments, they often develop an active and curious
mind.
The young man in this anecdote, though not an
American, is typical of the many Foreign Service youth and
other young people I work with. Despite the many advantages that come from growing up overseas, many TCKs
wonder where they belong, and don’t understand why they
feel so different from their peers when they return to the
country of their passport. Defining “home” is a challenge.
It may be at once everywhere and nowhere, because the
emotional and physical state of “home” may not be the
