Parents Corner | PEOPLE | EDUCATION ASIA | 137
Being a Third Culture Kid can be an extraordinary way to grow up. But globally mobile children deserve adults who understand its challenges.
If you stay long enough, and if you let yourself, those connections deepen. People learn your story, your habits, your weird bits. You rely on them. You trust them. You attach to them. That is when goodbyes start to hurt. TCKs need to move through that hurt, not around it. They need permission to be sad, angry and messy, to name what mattered and what they will miss, and to learn that they can survive the loss. If we rush them past those feelings, or wrap them up in “what an adventure” or “aren’t you lucky”, they can learn a dangerous lesson: attachment hurts, so maybe next time, don’t attach quite so deeply. Those protective habits can follow children into adulthood. Repeated connection and loss can shape the way we attach later in life: some people cling harder, others strive to be perfect so nobody has a reason to leave them, and some keep relationships just shallow enough to feel safe. Personally, I pack an emotional earthquake bag. When I begin to care deeply about someone, part of me starts preparing for the day they might leave. By the time I married my husband, I already knew what I would do if he left me. Where I would go. How I would cope. I need to be prepared.
Teaching Children to Leave Well Being a TCK can be an extraordinary way to grow up. But globally mobile children deserve adults who understand its challenges. Most parents inherit wisdom about raising children within their own culture. Families raising TCKs often have no equivalent wisdom for mobility, attachment and loss. They are learning alongside their children. That is where schools can help. Strong, supportive relationships are central to wellbeing. International educators can help TCKs learn how to attach well and how to leave well: making space for grief, teaching them that saying goodbye matters, and showing them that caring deeply is not something they need to protect themselves from.
I got 38 points at IB. I went to a red-brick university. I was a success. Box-ticked.
But success on paper did not protect me from the quieter cost. As an adult, I have struggled to form deep connections and sometimes kept people at a safer distance because somewhere inside me is still the fifteen-year-old who learned that it was safer that way. I wish someone had taught me how to say goodbye in June.
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