Changing from country, language, culture, home is challenging.

Credit D. Sharon Pruitt from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, USA

As a parent, when we see our third culture kids struggling, we are in intense doubt.  We feel worried, anxious and terribly guilty.

Which parent has never wondered in front of her desperate child:

“What if I ruined her life, by me being too ambitious, too greedy, too selfish?”

 “Am I really the best parent I can be for my children considering the upheaval they’ve experienced in moving abroad with me?”

To answer this question, let’s put things into perspective first and take a closer look at the role of parent.

In doing this analysis, I found 4 key areas which I believe are the foundation of a successful education.

1. Help children know themselves

To make informed choices and build meaningful relationships, having a clear idea of who you are is priceless.
Through providing a wide range of new experiences to our children, we, as parents, help them

a/ discover what they like and what they dislike.
Do they prefer playing a team game at soccer or an individual performance at tennis?
Do they like singing in the school choir or would they rather play the guitar or the drums?
Do they prefer French food or Thai food? Do they like a continental climate or a tropical one?

b/ become aware of their own strengths and weaknesses.
Are they gifted for languages? Going to the local school and having to speak another language will quickly show it.
What about their social skills? Making friends easily in various countries will be a good test.

c/ experience and control different emotions
What about the mix of excitement and fright while being on stage, the satisfaction of shooting a goal in the soccer match, the pleasure to travel and discover new places? Let’s not forget, on the other hand, the grief of losing a home and the frustration to leave friends and family behind.

Michelle Bloom, director at Accelerated Evolution, a strategy and consulting firm, is convinced that developping emotional resilience is the best gift you can offer to your child.

But the picture would not be complete without helping our children to know where they’re coming from, to transfer them some of our values, beliefs and principles. They’ll probably pick their own on the road as well, inspired by the different cultures they’ll experience. We have to be prepared for that.

“There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings.” Hodding Carter, Jr.                     Click to tweet

2. Help children become independent

The whole point of raising children is to shape competent adults:

 a/ able to care of themselves in all practical areas of life (cooking, washing, sewing, house cleaning and quick fixes).

Getting in touch with different cultures and countries is a real opportunity to acquire those skills.

In a place where you can’t speak the language, you have to learn to take care of yourself pretty quickly. In some cases, you’ll be fortunate enough to have a cook, a driver, a gardener but I bet that most of the time, you’ll face an empty fridge. All your senses will be geared towards finding food, and at that time, you can’t be too picky… to avoid starvation.

 One day, you may wake up and discover that water supply has been cut off due to the drought in the region. Or you can even face thousands of ants in the kitchen as we discovered on our first day in Australia.

 b/ skilled at managing money: not spending more than they earn, taking responsibility for the consequences of their acts.

By living abroad, you learn about currency and its value. With one euro, you can buy a baguette in France, you’ll need 3 dollars in Australia. You’re paid in France and in Belgium at the end of the month, in Australia, it’s every week. All those differences are wonderful eye-openers on different systems.

3. Teach children to care for others

Each third culture kid knows what it means to arrive the first day at school, have no friend, and sometimes no idea of what is said. You can never  forget this feeling.

What a relief when you get a warm welcome, when you see a gentle smile on all the faces of your schoolmates, when people care for you. On the contrary, imagine the nightmare when nobody pays attention to you and act as if you were invisible.

 This is a lesson of life. It beats all the theory you could learn in a classroom.

Which better example can you find to teach your child to care for another in need?

4. Motivate children to care for the planet

We have big challenges ahead of us: climate change and peak oil. We know that we won’t be able to go on and on and on for decades. Our planet has limited resources which are incompatible with the growth economy we’ve shaped in our globalization model.

We have to change our minds and subsequently raise the awareness of the children towards the environment. Travelling abroad, they’ll visit stunning places and discover the fabulous biodiversity present on earth. They won’t have to learn it in a book.

Of course, this does not go without  contradiction: most of us take the plane more frequently (hence polluting much more than travelling by car or by bike), stay in hotels (consuming more water to wash towels and sheets) and eat in take-away restaurants (all the packaging!). This is why we need to educate our children to be more attentive and respectful of the environment.

All this sounds extremely serious and ambitious.

You may wonder:  am I the perfect parent?

There are 2 answers to this question.

YES, says Françoise Dolto, prominent French psychoanalyst. And she used to add: “Yes, You are the perfect parents for YOUR children, because they don’t have any other ones.”

NO, of course not. The perfect parent nor the perfect person does not exist. In this journey, we’re discovering too. We have third culture kids but we’re third culture parents, after all.

“Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.” aldus Robert Fulghum           Click to tweet

If I can look back in 20 years’ time and find my children happy, independent and engaged with their peers for making this world a better place to live, I’ll be blessed.

Now, it’s your turn. What do you think? Do you share those ideas? Did I miss something?
I’m looking forward to your comments below. If you prefer, send me an email.