Third-Culture Kids/Cross Culture Kids are connected by their experience to multiple countries and cultures. Many TCKs have relocated often and during a pandemic may feel the internal pull to check up on or be connected to many of their ‘home’ cultures. Having lived cross-culturally can leave these young people triangulated between several worlds. This often means experiencing the grief and loss of one culture while celebrating another, all at the same time. One country may be managing the pandemic beautifully because of their recent weathering of the SARS epidemic while another may be experiencing a national pandemic for the first time.. These contrasting feelings can be difficult to experience and balance as a young person.
TCKs/CCKs do not easily shed any of the countries and cultures that they have experienced and may have additional losses as a result. The various countries which the TCK/CCK is familiar with may be taking a variety of approaches to the pandemic and have different information circulating which can be confusing and complicated due to the competing perspectives and potential loyalty at play. Politicians and medical perspectives may differ outrageously from the country they reside in compared to other places they have called home. Who can be trusted? Who do they believe? TCKs/CCKs will likely be considering both the Western and Eastern viewpoints as well as rubs between collectivist and individualistic society perspectives. There may be a tension to keep tabs on people and statistics from each nation and a deep desire to experience all the realities. This is a weight that someone who has lived in one location their whole life does not have. For TCKs/CCks this can be complex and weighty.
Many TCKs/CCKs may have experienced a range of first-world to third-world cultural settings in their lifetimes. This could mean that they feel like they are not aligned with the intense loss that many around them are enduring. Because of their experience, they can quickly contextualize content from multiple global news stories and have an uncanny ability to understand how a wide range of people might be feeling – even in a ‘once in a lifetime’, world-wide, pandemic. This is an admirable empathetic quality, but can also result in compounded grief and even vicarious trauma as they feel the pain from numerous, emotionally related to them, sources.
They are global nomads and have a uniquely wide worldview because they have managed multiple cultures. Many will find it necessary to do global research and expect themselves to ‘be in the know’ on how ‘everyone’ is withstanding the crisis. TCKs/CCKs can habitually feel compelled to know about the global impact and simultaneously feel the effect from a variety of perspectives. Because of who they know and where they have been, this is an exceptional aspect of the universal pandemic event that TCKs/CCKs experience.
These emotions can be overwhelming, and TCKs/CCKs may benefit from processing them with someone who understands this pressure. Having deposited love and care in multiple people and places can affect TCKs/CCKs right where they are. If you or someone you know would benefit from additional care or a consultation in this pandemic season, you do not have to stay isolated and alone. We invite you to our care page where we will put you in touch with a therapist who specializes in TCK/CCK care. Find us at youthcompass.org/care/
We are here for you; we can navigate this together.
