Are you an ATCK raising TCK’s?

If you are an Adult Third Culture Kid raising Third Culture Kids, please read this post. You are probably familiar with the definition of a TCK, but here it is, just for those who are not sure if they are (or not) an ATCK:

A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture. The TCK frequently builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture may be assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.

As an ATCK, we know exactly what our children are going through while growing up in a country that is not their (and our!) passport country. We have doubts about what language to teach them, as we are multilinguals, and we don’t know what kind of traditions we should teach them, show them and which aspects of our very colorful life we should pass them on.

As ATCK’s and former TCK’s (or expats-since-birth) we don’t feel the urge to have to explain where “home” is, we never questioned this. I’ve read so many articles from not-real-ATCK’s pretending that TCK’s ask themselves where they come from: this is simply not true!

I noticed that many topics about multilingualism, raising multilingual children etc. are often written by First Culture Adults or parents who never experienced a whole life as “expat” and I realize that the way to approach these topics is quite different from what I expect.

Therefore I would like to make this small attempt to ask other ATCK’s to let me know how they raise their TCK’s and what kind of experience they’ve made.

With your help, I will soon start this series on my blog because as an Expat-since-birth and ATCK myself, and raising TCK’s I’m wondering what makes the difference of being ATCK parents, raising TCK’s.

Related articles

• Being a Third Culture Kid: Big Fat Mindfuck or Blessing? (opineseason.com)
• Expat parenting book read-along (bxlsprout.com)
• Planning for Third Culture Kids (TCK’s) (asiasurvey2013.wordpress.com)
• My multilingual journey (expatsincebirth.com)