Reading Notes for TCK Chapters 13-19

Chapter 13 Strong Foundation-

How do you build a strong foundation for cultural transition?
Wise Cross Culture parenting takes planning and effort.
Parents must help children plan and prepare for cross-cultural living?
Parent-to parent Relationship:
Commitment to each other.
Respect and support for one another
Willingness to nurture the relationship
Parent-To-Child Relationship:
Children need to be valued
Children need to be special
Children need to be protected
Children need to be comforted

Explain Positive Parental relationships Why is a Spiritual Core vital?

Cross Cultural Parenting:
Wise Cross Culture Parenting asks the following Positive Spiritual Core: This foundation is block is the childs
questions: awareness that there is a stable spiritual core in their parents lives and
What family needs require attention in any location? in the life of the family as a whole.
What are policies of sending agency? It is valuable to understand different truths as represented in different
How will family relationships be affected? cultures to withhold judgement and interpretation.
Do both parents favor move? In a world where moral values and practices can be radically different
How does family handle stress? from one place to another, this block of maintaining a constancy of
How will family take advantage of CC opportunities? identifiable core beliefs and values is the key to true stability
What educational opportunities exist? throughout life.
How will family prepare to leave? TCKs are equipped to remain on a steady course, no matter which
culture or cultures they live in.
Positive Spiritual Core:
Needs a stable spiritual core
Needs a sense of personal truth and ability to discern
truth
Needs identifiable core beliefs and values for stability
throughout life
Provides steady course throughout life.

Explain childs need to be comforted: How do you help you child develop a worthy world view in an
Being comforted communicates that parents care and international setting?
understand, even if the situation cant be changed.
Parents should remember, particularyly in any By talking to them
transition experience, that the quietest, most compliant Being there for them
child may be grieving and need comforting the most. Trying to understand them
comfort them as best as possible

Explain why a child needs to be valued:

Knowing that what we think and feel makes a
difference to those around us is part of feeling
significant as a human being.
Parents of TCKs communicate that they value their
children in all the usual ways parents normally do: by
listening when children talk, by asking good questions,
by seeking clarification when a child speaks or acts in
a way parents dont quite understand, by giving a quite
hug.
A challenge for TCKs parents is that there constantly
growing up in different worlds.

4 Foundation Blocks for Healthy TCKs Explain a positive Spiritual Core.

Parent to Parent Relationship:
Commitment to each other I think the parent to child relationship is very important in
Respect and support for one another general because as a child you rely on your parents for many
Willingness to nurture relationship things. They are the people that you would like to believe that
their parents are the ones that they can trust in anything because
Parent to Child Relationship: they want what is best for them.
Parents are most important caregivers As a child you expect your parents to guide and protect you.
Children need to be valued The parents are the most important caregivers.
Children need to be protected Children want to be valued- parents can show that to their
Children need to be comforted children by showing them you appreciate them and spending time
with them and teaching them new things.
Positive Spiritual Core: Children want to be protected and comforted.
Needs a stable spiritual core
Needs a sense of personal truth and ability to discern
truth
Needs identifiable core beliefs and values for stability
throughout life
Provides steady course throughout life.

TCKs Perception of Parents Work

Feel Proud?
Feel Bitterness?
Parents positive/negative toward host culture?
Can endure hardship?
Can repatriate?

Why is it important to understand a childs What is the responsibility of the sending agency for family care
perspective of parents work? and health?
It is important to understand a child's perspective
to know how they are feeling because as a parent The responsibility is to check on the families care and see how
you might look at it differently than your child. So they are doing and or on their health to make sure that everyone
it is important you understand the perspective of a is healthy and if not to get them the assistance that they need.
child because there is a different mentality from a
child to an adult.
You might not feel what a child is feeling so it is
important to try and understand children and talk
to them about how they feel.

Chapter 14: Dealing with Transition: Explain following. On left explain the topics from the text. On
right column add your personal experiences or ideas concerning each topic.
Involvement through leaving: Building a Strong Foundation:
Having a comfortable transition Requires dealing with transition
Involvement Cant stop the transition issues or patterns of mobility but can deal
Talking to them about the transition with them in healthy manner!
Notifying them beforehand Very important to deal with transition issues effectively
Preparing them Leaving requires that TCKs: Face losses but look forward with hope!
Grieving

Building a RAFT: Reconciliation: any time we face a move from one place to another,
R- Reconciled its easy to deal with tensions in relationships by ignoring them.
A- Affirm Relationships Reconciliation includes both the need to forgive and be forgiven.
F- Farewells Affirmation: relationships are built and maintained through
T- Think Destination affirmation- the acknowledgement that each person in this
relationship matters.
*Raft links home culture with host culture!! have children identify who their special friends, teachers, adults in the
community are.
 Encourage children to think of something they might like to give that
special person
As a family send a note letting them know about the transition.
Farewells: saying goodbye to people, place, pets, and possessions in
culturally and age appropriate ways is important if we dont want to
leave deep regrets later.
Think Destination: Need to think realistically about our destination:
Where we are going even though it is sad to leave and say good-bye.

Maintaining stability through transition:

can stay sacred thorough object, memories, pictures
Other sacred objects are worn

Mourning Losses:
mourning is the conscious acknowledgement of loss.
Getting through the transition stage isnt only about
exploring the present but looking at our losses.
It includes the need to continue that planning for the
future that we began when we thought destination in
the leaving stage.

Entering right:
The more we have thought ahead about this time,
however, and the more we are consciously aware of
what we and our family will need to make a positive
entry to this place, the sooner and smoother we can
begin to positively move into our new life.
It is important for everyone to be involved

Getting reinvolved:
This doesnt always mean that we like everything
about the situation, but at least we can start to see why
people do what they do rather than only what it is they
do.

Chapter 15: Meeting educational needs of children when living abroad.

List various types of educational choices in the School Teachers more than academic subjects
following spaces. Schooling should not make it impossible for the child to return to the
Teachers can invest in helping TCK students by home country
investing Home and Correspondence Schooling
Educational Philosophies Differ Among Cultures
Parents must examine the total approach to education
in any system of schooling, not merely the academics.

Meeting Educational Needs: Home and Correspondence Schooling:

Educational Philosophies differ among cultures PROS:
Culture is passed on in schools Child lives with parents
Schooling must help child return home Individualized instruction
Review different school choices Moral and spiritual values of parents taught
Home schooling is possible Child can continue schooling in home country without interruption
Distance learning is now available can use curriculum of choice
Satellite Schools, native Schools, Local International CONS:
Schools, and Boarding Schools. Lack of parental teaching skills
Children may fall behind if so
Parent child stress
 lack of peer contact
Lack of healthy competition
Coming Home: Reentry Schools on the Internet:
Home Again Reacculturation PROS:
Involvement Child lives with parents
Small size class
Farewells/ Goodbyes Child can continue schooling in home country without interruption
Affirmations Reconciliation Internet classes include virtual classmates, discussion, real time
Think/Plan to return teacher.
Local National Schools Teaching responsibility with teacher, more like physical classroom:
parents not teaching outside their skill level.
Satellite Schools
CONS:
Local International Schools Lack of physically present peers
Boarding Schools May be more expensive than other schooling options.
Pre University Schooling in the Home
Country
Finding Your Own Identity: Identity Texts: A Practical Means to Reconnect
Country of origin graphic organizer Identify Texts: How Schools Can help!
Venn diagram comparing Springfield, MA- USA to According to Jim Cummins, Identity texts are the products of student
place of origin work carried out with pedagogical frameworks
Researching location, culture, language, and other Students invest their identities through writing, speaking, visual, or
information about country of origin musical forms, or combine in multimodal form, then share with others
Interviewing family members for positive affirmation.
Creating a personal collage
Writing an I am poem
Creating a personal cd cover
Chapter 16: Enjoying the Journey
Select 5 key points that you wish to discuss concerning
enjoying the journey and explain your views and
personal experiences with each.

1. HAVING FUN!- never forget the best aspect of TCK lifestyle is the fun it can be. Having fun in the journey is another great way
to tie the many elements of a TCKs life together into a cohesive whole that is essential for building a strong sense of identity.

2.Unpack Your Bags and Plant Your Trees!- it means you have made a choice to embrace all the possibilities and live with an
openness to all the opportunities this life affords rather than to live in a self-protective mode.

3. Keep Relationships Solid!- Keep in touch with people you have met in different countries. Keep in touch with them, Try to
see each other again and or if you can meet up at another country. Just keep in contact do not lose those friendships, they are
worth a lot!

4. Build Strong Ties with the Community- By building this community you can build extended families that you will learn and
grow together from. You will learn from their culture and be part of that culture. Build strong ties with extended families. As
well stay in contact with them.

5. Explore and Become Involved in the Surroundings!- Learn about the countrys history, geography, and culture. Families
should pretend they are tourists once or twice a year and plan trips just to see the sights. Explore as much as possible when you
are in that country. Try things that you have never tried before, or try them again. Explore as much as possible, taste the food, be
adventurous and maybe try some crazy things.
Chapter 17 : Coming Home
Reentry Process: How does reentry become a plus?
Reasons for reentry stress are simply extensions of
the many factors we have talked about, particularly Relational
the normal challenges of any cross-cultural Emotional
transition: the grief of losing a world they have Creative
come to love, the discomfort of being out of cultural Volitional
balance once more, and the struggle to start to find Intellectual
 a place of belonging in a new place with new people.
Reverse Culture Shock:
experiencing a new culture they are not use too
Confuse cultures they have experienced
they have a difficult time adapting to new culture
Language might be a barrier
Physical
Spiritual
Significant
Unified
It is difficult to adapt every single time you go to another country
You become stronger
They have to settle in and no one is treating them any more special
than anyone else, it can become a shock.
Reentry might not be quite so difficult if the unexpected differences
were merely in some of these more obvious ways.
Have you ever had culture shock? Reverse culture shock?
When I went to go study abroad in Costa Rica, I did not have culture
shock when I was there. I was very excited to be there, I wanted to
experience and take everything in. I wanted to try everything that the
native people in Costa Rica would do. I really enjoyed my time there.
I did not want to come back.
But when I got back I think I did have reverse culture shock because
in Costa Rica everyone is very nice and welcoming. Because I would
catch myself always thinking of why Americans are so rude and not
welcoming and how we are so self centered here. I really missed the
culture I was living in, in Costa Rica and I wanted to go back. I felt
like I wasn't fitting in, it was different. Simple things as saying good
morning to everyone I saw I was being looked at weird. They were
very generous over there and I really enjoyed it but the American
culture and Costa Rican culture are very different.

Supporting a reentrant: How might you be
supportive to a TCK/A?
Prepare for reentry before leaving host country.
Remind TCKs that the foundation stones of their lives
can never be taken away.
Remind TCKs that foundations are meant to be built
on.
Remind everyone this is the time a mentor can be
helpful.
parents must remember its okay when their children
dont share the same sense of national identity as they
do.
What advice would you give someone considering working
abroad?
If someone was going to go work abroad I would tell them to research
the country and to familiarize themselves with the country itself. To
look up their culture, their values, norms, what they do, what they do
not do, etc.
You want to at least be a little familiar with how the country works in
their social, political, cultural life.

Chapter 18 How Sponsoring Organizations Can Help

Provide 3-5 key points for sponsoring agencies to help a family work and live successfully in an international school setting as
well as getting them back to home country in a healthy manner.

1. How Agencies Can Help During the Third Culture Experience:

a. Have an entry team or designated employee to welcome new employees onsite.
b. Help employees evaluate schooling options using the compiled list put together before departure.
c. Establish a flexible leave policy.
d. Make provision for children who are attending school in the home country to visit parents during vacations.
e. Support international community efforts to provide ongoing expatriate family services
Help families prepare for repatriation and organizational reeentry.
g. Offer reentry seminars for both parents and TCKs soon after repatriation.
2. How Agencies Can Help Prior to the Overseas Assignment:
a. Make sure families know the schooling options before going overseas
b. Organizational managers need to gather information on how often and why personnel are transferred to new locations.
3. How Agencies Can Help Their TCKs in the Long Term:
a. Support an alumni newsletter
b. Use the experience TCKs and ATCKs
c. Apologize for past organizationl mistakes.
d. Support a TCKs Journey Clarification
 Chapter 19: Its Never Too Late
Why is a name important for an ATCK and their experiences?
Discovering there are legitimate reasons for their life experiences and the resulting feelings not only helps them understand
themselves better, it also normalizes the experiences.
Name their behavioral patterns
Once ATCKs realize their past has undoubtedly influenced their present life and their choices, its time for them to make an
honest assessment.
Name their Fears
Name their Losses
Name their Wounds
Name their Choices

Select 3 behavioral patterns that an ATCK should change and provide a rationale for your reasoning.
Listen and try to Understand
Comfort and be Gentle
Dont Preach
Forgive
Assume You are Needed

What do you need to learn more about in order to be a good friend/counselor for a TCK?
Listen to the story and ask good questions
Dont compare stories
Comfort is possible
Our goal is to help therapists understand the basic life patterns of the third culture experiences so they will be better prepared to
assist their TCK clients.