Where is home for expat children?

What research tells us

Children who live in a culture that is different from that of their parents' are often called TCKs (third culture kids). And there has actually been quite a lot of research on how third culture children adjust to their new environments.

According to one such study, expat children don't think of home in the same way as other children. To them, there is no "ownership" of one single culture. Instead, they feel attachment to several.

In the book Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, author Ruth Van Reken and sociologist David C. Pollock show that TCKs often develop what they call a “third culture identity” – something new, not fully tied to their parents' home or the new host country, something uniquely their own.

This sounds like a good thing, but then there is another study that highlights that expat children who move frequently go through multiple cycles of loss. Every time the family relocates, they need to say goodbye to friends and familiar surroundings, and this has a lasting impact on them.

Psychologist Erik Erikson calls identity formation the key developmental task of childhood and adolescence. And it looks like for expat children this stage becomes more layered and less defined.

Is there anything parents can do to maximize the positive and minimize the negative?

Managing an expat child's well-being is a complex and multifaceted process. And if you notice that your child is struggling, it's always best to talk to a professional. But it may also be helpful to hear the experiences of other parents and perhaps pick up a few small but practical ways to improve their experience.

"I'm from here and there"

“We've had this problem, our son didn't know how to answer “where are you from?”. My son is mixed, I am Russian and his father is Taiwanese, and we live in a small town in the US. Other kids ask questions because he's the only one who looks “different”. At one point we heard him actually say “I'm from here and there.” So we started talking to him more about his story. We explained that he was born in Taiwan, like his dad. We told him that mom comes from a different country, showed him pictures (*he has never visited Russia). He now started telling people these very long stories when they ask where he is from. But I think that's good, that's the way for him to understand his story better”, shares Ekaterina, a Russian expat in the US who relocated from Taiwan.

For kids with more complex living situations, simple questions like “where are you from?” may not be as simple. In fact, there is a whole TCK thread on Reddit focused on this question.

Some find it easier to keep the answers as simple as possible:

"I just say my nationality".

For others, it depends on how far into detail they want to go: "Yes, that is my default when I'm giving a one-line answer. It also helps that I'm not a mix in terms of parentage (regionally, yes, but nationally, no), though I know it gets tricky for TCKs who grew up with parents of different nationalities."

Some admit that, years later, it is still a question they don't really have an answer to: "I get really tired of answering the question because I myself do not know anymore, lol. I just say “I am ethnically XYZ but grew up mostly across countries in Europe and a bit in North America.”

And some have found that the best strategy is a counter question: "Do you want to know where I was born, where I grew up, or where I am living now?" It confuses people.

This is why introducing your children to new vocabulary when it comes to answering this question early on can be helpful. It will also give them time to “practice” the answer until they finally find one they are most comfortable with.

"Let them ask the hard questions"

Many parents feel at least somewhat guilty about relocating their children, especially if they are relocating to a different culture, and even more so if the children are not in favor of the move. These feelings of guilt often lead to parents trying to avoid the whole topic of the move and all the questions that come with it.

“One of the many things I did wrong when handling our relocation with my son was trying to distract him from it. I was trying very hard to get him excited about the new school, the new park, and the beach. I ended up kind of pressuring him to be happy about it, and I think he could not express how he really felt for a long time. So he was probably pretending to be okay with a lot of things while he was struggling to answer questions he was afraid to ask", says Ekaterina.

“We are what's constant”

For a child, more things often change with relocation than for an adult. It depends on their age, but a lot of things in a child's life are location-based. Friends, playgrounds, parks, school, social structures, food, and what they do before and after school. If a lot of these things change all at once, naturally, they may be hard to process.

Eugenia, a Belarus expat in Kenya, who relocated from Germany, speaks about her approach: “What we tell our boys all the time is that yes, things may be different, but we are what's constant. Our family, the way we are, how we interact, it all remains the same. They can always talk to us about anything, and we can always discuss things, anything they don't like or find difficult. We have very open conversations about how everyone is doing, and I think we are doing well overall”.

Having a strong home base can be a very powerful thing for a child going through an identity shift. At the heart of this assumption is Attachment Theory developed by John Bowlby. It suggests that children often turn to their caregivers in an unstable environment.

"Some kids just take it better"

“It all depends on your kids, I don't think there is any generic advice here that would work for all. My son doesn't really mind that we move. He is five, and he makes friends really easily. He just walks into a room, makes everyone laugh, and that's it; he has new best friends. He never asked us any questions, and when someone asks him where he is from, he just tells it like it is. Maybe I am being too optimistic, but he doesn't seem to be struggling at all. My daughter is very different. She needs a system and schedules; she's more like me. She likes things organized and similar. And she told us point-blank that she doesn't want to move again because she has a “boyfriend”. Luckily, we are not planning more relocations in the next decade,” shares Alina, a Russian expat in the US.

Many expats emphasize the importance of paying attention and simply observing how your children are doing. They may react differently than what you expected, and they may also be going through things that you did not anticipate.

They have two homes: The "work home" and the "fun home"

Some expats swear by having distinct routines for children that move when you move. This way, while the "outside" of their lives may change, the "inside" remains the same and contributes to stability.

Jenny, a Brazilian expat in China, says: "We keep things as similar as possible in both locations. They wake up at the same time, have breakfast (we try to give them familiar foods too), go to preschool, and when they are back, we follow their usual schedule just like we do back home. Because our kids are usually busy, not much changes in their daily lives when we are in a different country. Our kids are still small, three and five, so it still feels "easy".

Expats with older kids, however, often choose to keep the routines different – but consistent.

"For us, the routines abroad and back home are very different; the kids know that and they are used to it. In Dubai (*where the family has relocated), it's all about work. Husband and I are at work; the kids are at school. They have their sports after, and we all catch up in the evenings. Weekends, we go out, explore, and have more family time. But back home, we go back for school holidays, it's all family time. We purposefully don't create any specific schedules for kids there; their routine is the lack of it. They get to spend time with grandparents, meet their friends, and we go on random trips. They love it. I think this change in routines is actually very helpful. They always look forward to going back home, but they are also happy to return to school because they miss their friends and activities here. It's like they have two homes: the "work home" and the "fun home", says Nadezhda, a Belarus expat in Dubai who relocated from Poland.

"We have an official Zoom day"

One of the biggest issues with relocation is that you often lose touch. And while for adults it is often the natural process of growing apart as you move on with your life, for children, it can often feel more dramatic and upsetting. And a lot of the time, they may not know how to manage relationships that now have a distance between them.

“We moved when our son was eight. I think it's the worst age to move, to be honest. Because he already had a lot of attachments, but didn't really know how to keep up with them. We started by scheduling regular calls with grandparents. He was excited at first, but then the calls became “boring” and more of a chore. But we insisted. We also set up weekly calls with two of his best friends. It was a bit of a hassle to keep this up at the beginning. But when we moved back to the UK two years later, he could pick up with these relationships, and they are still friends today.”, says Ekaterina.

It seems that regular digital catch-ups are something a lot of expat families insist on. They become part of the children' s daily lives and, while probably not ideal, help them keep important relationships active.

Alina relates: “We have regular calls with grandparents, aunts and uncles, some friends too. We do these via Zoom every Saturday. It's our official “zoom day”. My daughter looks forward to it and prepares. She makes notes of all the things that happen at school, sometimes she has a poem ready, we try to make these fun."

So, where is home after all?

With the questions we get asked often, it's very tempting to long for simple answers. We naturally search for things to give us that simple answer: a country, a passport, our family, just a place on the map that we can point to. But if you've read this far, if you are an expat or Third Culture Kid parent, or you are one yourself, you probably already know that it's not that simple. And for many relocated children, home isn't something they can sum up in a single word. It can even be a project they are working on slowly and quietly.

Home for such children can be a combination of many random things that, at first glance, may seem small and arbitrary: a smell of their favorite dish from one country, a cool playground from another, a language they speak with one of their parents, a new friend they've made after the move. The idea of home is complicated, multiple – but absolutely real.

How to help a child make sense of their identity: sum-up

If there's one thing that comes up a lot in expat testimonies, it's that children not only need experiences – they need to understand, too. So, it's always a good idea to start with an open conversation about how their life may look and feel different in the new destination, and why it is okay.

Try to give them the language to tell their story. We've seen from many recounts above how even adults may struggle with answering the dreaded "where are you from" question. Instead of simplifying, it may be helpful to expand the answer. “I was born in…But my family is from… I've lived in…"

Let complexity be okay. We often live with the unspoken "pick a side" pressure. One nationality, one culture, one heritage. For many expat children, the reality is different. But the beauty of it is that they don't have to choose one place – they can build a connection with all of them.