Reading Notes for TCK Part III

Chapter 13: Strong Foundation

Parents can help by answering important questions
o What does the family need regardless of location?
o What are the policies of the sending organization?
o How will existing family patters and relationships be affected?
o Do both parents favor the move?
o How does the family handle stress?
o How will the family take advantage of the cross-cultural opportunities?
o What educational options are available?
o How will the family prepare to leave?
Foundation blocks for healthy TCKs
o Parent-to-parent relationship
Commitment to each other
Respect and support for one another
Willingness to nurture the relationship
o Parent-to-child relationship
Children need to be valued
Children need to be special
Children need to be protected
Children need to be comforted
o TCKs perception of parents work I can endure any how if I have a why.
o Positive spiritual core: maintaining a constancy of identifiable core beliefs and values is the
key to true stability throughout life.
Chapter 14: Dealing with Transition
From Involvement through leaving
o Building a RAFT
Reconciliation: the need to forgive and be forgiven
Affirmation: each person in the relationship matters; good closure acknowledges our
blessings
Farewells: people, places, pets, and possessions
Think destination: positives and negatives of where we are going; external and
internal resources for coping with problems
Maintaining stability through the transition stage
o Mourning the losses conscious acknowledgement of loss
Entering right
o Choosing and using mentors cultural bridges to the new culture
Reinvolvement stage
o Settling into our new surroundings
o Accepting the people and places for who and what they are
Chapter 15: Meeting educational needs
Making the best choice
o Educational philosophies differ among cultures
Styles of discipline, teaching and grading
Problem-based learning or learning by rote
Motivation techniques

o School teaches more than academic subjects

Communication of cultural values; no such thing as value-free education
o Schooling should not make it impossible for the child to return to the home country
Different schooling options
o Home and correspondence schooling
o Online schools
o Satellite schools
o Local national schools
o Local international schools
o Boarding schools
o Pre-university schooling in the home country

Chapter 16: Enjoying the Journey

Have fun!
Unpack your bags and plant your trees (physical and mental rooting)
o Tour when traveling between countries
o Explore and become involved in the surroundings
Keep relationships solid
o Develop family traditions
Build strong ties with community (extended family)
o Strong ties to extended family in home culture
o Strong ties with friends
Return to the same home for each leave
o Need sense that there is at least one physical place in their passport country to identify as
home
o Stay long enough to establish a basis for relationship
Acquire sacred objects
o Take back meaningful, portable objects from each place
Chapter 17 : Coming Home
Reentry Stresses
o Unrealistic expectations
o Reverse culture shock
Common reactions to reentry stress
o Elevated fears
o Excessive anger at home culture and peers
o Sense of elitism true or projected
o Depression
Helping in reentry process
o Prepare for reentry before leaving the host country
o Remind children that their foundational stones can never be taken away
o Remind children that foundations are meant to be built on
o Remind everyone this is the time a mentor can be helpful
o Parents remember its okay when children dont share same sense of national identity
o Parents remember their responsibility in helping children in reentry
o Remember its okay to customize approach to reentry depending on circumstances
o Remember a journey of clarification can be helpful later on
Chapter 18: How sponsoring organizations can help
How agencies can help during third culture experience

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Have an entry team or designated employee to welcome new employees onsite

Help employees evaluate schooling option before departure
Establish a flexible leave policy
Make provision for children to visit parents if they attend school elsewhere
Support international community efforts to provide ongoing expat family services
Help families prepare for repatriation and reentry
Offer reentry seminars for parent and TCKs soon after reentry

Chapter 19: Its Never Too Late

What ATCKs can do
o Name themselves and their experience
o Name their behavioral patterns
o Name their fears
o Name their losses
o Name their wounds
o Name their choices
How parents can help their ATCKs
o Listen and try to understand
o Comfort and be gentle
o Dont preach
o Forgive
o Assume you are needed
What relatives and friends can do
o Listen to the story and ask good questions
o Dont compare stories
o Comfort if possible
How therapists can help
o Recognize hidden losses
o Recognize the impact of the system
o Recognize the paradox