Children who have been brought up in a number of cultures other than their own are often referred to as Third Culture Kids (TCKs). They are, in many ways, the “global” children we aspire to have. They are at home in any situation, well-travelled, multi-lingual, able to interact with a wide variety of people from a wide-variety of backgrounds, adaptable and easily able to assimilate into new situations. However, it is often forgotten that the journey to becoming a TCK is a long and fraught one, filled with traumatic changes in school, country, friends and environment. Is it any wonder then that literature tells us TCKs are more prone to suffer from depression, and the more frequently they change schools, the more likely this is? (Devens, 2005).
As a parent of three TCKs myself, I count five schools in five very different countries, a return to one country adding up to six moves. My own personal experience is that acclimatising to a new school and new country can take at least six months as students go through a process of forgetting the culture they have just been living in and getting used to new cultural norms (Kim, 2001). During that time your child is liable to be feel alienated, homesick, fear and stress as a result of their drastic change in circumstances. This culture shock can obviously have a drastic effect on their progress at school (Sandhu & Asrabi, 1994).