Home Assignment: The Good, the Bad, and the Hard for the TCK

“Home Assignment” has always been one of those hot button words in our family. In our case, I can’t wait to go. My husband can’t wait until it’s over—the big difference being that he’s a Third Culture Kid (TCK). This article will explain what causes this kind of reaction in the TCK and in the process, give some insight and encouragement for those of you who are dreading home assignment, as a TCK yourself or for the TCKs in your own life.

Many TCKs dread home assignment. Even with promises from parents about meeting loving grandparents, eating your favorite foods, or even going to Disneyland, the TCK still feels anxious, confused, and unsettled. A recent seminar on TCKs highlighted three themes that all TCKs have in common no matter what the field: loss, loss, and loss. The dictionary defines the word “loss” as “the experience of having something taken from you or destroyed”. Rarely is this feeling more poignant for the TCK than when going on home assignment, where home, school, and relationships are all left behind for the great unknown.

It’s confusing for the parents of TCKs to find that it is often children—who adapted well to life overseas—who struggle the most when returning to their passport countries. My children adapted pretty well to life in our small town in Japan, where we spent the first few years of our ministry. It meant when not in school, we lived in a Japanese neighborhood, worked at a Japanese church, and spoke primarily Japanese. When going through Los Angeles International Airport on our first home assignment, my young son nervously whispered to us, “There are foreigners everywhere”. My husband often shares memories of leaving the close relationships he developed with other MKs in the school dormitory, who were like family, to arrive in the States where he was expected to feel connected to cousins he barely knew. In both cases, home assignment wasn’t hard because of poor adjustment overseas, but rather because of good adjustment.

Home assignment is often a big change in the TCK’s life which intensifies all other losses. The losses that occur after these transitions often accumulate, since most TCKs feel they should be happy to be “home”. Accumulated grief often surfaces at transitional times, such as rights of passage, e.g. going off to college, choosing a career, etc. One TCK recently remarked in a counseling session, “I feel overwhelmed a lot.” Hearing statements like this leads parents to feel they have somehow “damaged” their kids. It takes wisdom and patience for parents of TCKs to not only allow kids to voice negative feelings about losses when they happen, but let them feel it’s “OK”, even normal, when upcoming transitions deeply affect them.

Life has a lot of losses, especially for the TCK. And not surprisingly, the impact of such losses seems to multiply in the transitions of home assignment. Allowing ourselves and our TCKs to express their sadness will go a long way toward managing other emotions further down the road. In spite of the losses, one TCK summed up the positive side of being raised overseas by saying, “I think I see the world rotating on its axis, not around some small town”. 

“Travel” graphic designed by Elliot Verhaeren from the thenounproject.com