Loving our TCK’s
I’m just finishing Third Culture Kids, by David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken. It gives invaluable insight into the hearts and minds of children who spend a significant part of their developmental years outside their parents’ culture. We look forward to the benefits of the next several years—the experiences in Slovakia that will enhance our sons’ lives; but we also know that this will be one of the hardest things we ever do, and this book helps us anticipate and meet some of the challenges peculiar to TCK’s.
For example, consider the five stages of any major transition:
- Involvement
- Leaving
- Transition
- Entering
- Reinvolvement
All four of us will go through these, as we begin to loosen ties with our world here and lose that sense of being an intimate part of our culture and community; but Kristian and Ethan will lose their whole world when they finally step on the plane to leave. They will not only be anxious, they will grieve—and they may express that grief in some odd or even unhealthy ways. We need to learn how to comfort when comfort is needed, and encourage when encouragement is needed.
Please pray for Paula and me to understand the unusual needs of our TCK’s, and to have compassion on them. And pray for Kristian and Ethan to learn more and more to live by faith as they become young men in a new culture.