Transitions: Developing a Better Understanding of TCKs

As usual, I'm trying to process why I'm feeling low and out of sorts. When this happens, I typically sit and brood for a while - complacent and passive until I get tired of even being tired and decide to take some action. I didn't realize how much information there actually is out there about TCKs. I'm surprised because I'm only now discovering and gleaning information and it's overwhelming to realize that research on the topic has been on-going for years. It makes me feel behind, but at the same time it helps me realize that as TCKs shift with our ever changing world, there is a need for research and understanding on the topic to shift, as well.

I still find it amazing how much I relate to the majority of everything I read about TCKs. It sounds odd, but I know I'm a TCK yet it's hard to accept it sometimes due to my expectations of what I thought life would be like in the United States. I didn't have the opportunity to reframe my thoughts and expectations and wasn't prepared about repatriation. Instead of seeing a move to the States as moving to a new foreign country, I viewed as "going home"....

The issue with that thought lies in the fact that I left this (United States, passport country) place that I'm expecting to be home when I was six years old. Yes, I came back every summer, but I wasn't living here. Plus, when we came to the States in the summer, we would travel all around. You could equate that somewhat to the multiple times we went to London. We went there three times and some of the things we experienced were familiar. The same is true with the United States. We started to vacation in New Hampshire in the summers and ended up vacationing in the same location a total of 5 summers. It was familiar to come back to the same area, but I think we only rented the exact same chalet twice while all other times we were in a different chalet. So, even with that experience I didn't consider it home.

I'm trying to learn not to ask "why" so much anymore. It's very natural for me to want to ask "why did I call coming to the United states going back home," but the more I question things the more unraveled and confused I feel.

Reading this article about reentry, it makes so much sense when this adolescent repatriate gave the following advice: "Repatriating adolescents [or even adults] be advised to treat their "home" country as a foreign country. After all, he explained, once you have moved abroad you have learned how to deal with ambiguity and confusing cultural patterns. It is living at "home," where you are supposed to know how everything works, that is hard."

Part of me still wants to help repatriating TCKs and even international students as they come into the United States and are trying to get acclimated with a new culture. That's the reason I chose Higher Education to go into. But I question myself. I question if I would even be able to help them because I feel so behind in my own understanding and knowledge of TCK information. It sounds silly. I know we can't know everything right away - that's the point of learning and growing. I just feel like there is still so much growth that I need to do and I'm tired.

I found this other website and it's a great source of information for TCK students transitioning to American college life. It gives a great list of resources and even explains some things that TCKs deal with, how they interact with others, benefits and hardships, and then some potential activities/events to get TCKs involved in campus life.

I'm still learning so much. It's a painful growing period. It's relieving to find this information, hard to accept that I feel some of my pain could have been prevented, exciting because I want to learn more, grow as a person and professional, and aid others in their experiences transitioning.