Welcome to another week of Recommended Reading! Here’s a range of interesting posts related to international life from the past month.

Parenting Third Culture Kids: Who are TCKs and how can you help yours?
Beijing Kids
First up is a little plug! I was recently featured (twice!) in the Beijing Kids magazine. Now those articles are available online. Here’s a taste of an interview with me:
“Something that is extremely helpful for TCKs is creating a safe space where kids can express different aspects of culture and not have to self-censor. Having a space where they can just be whatever mix they are. When parents are able to do this at home they get to know their real kids, not an act their kids put on based on their parent’s cultural expectations. . .It’s refreshing for children to know that home is a place where they can go and relax; where they don’t have to worry about fitting in or making a mistake or pronouncing words correctly.”

Raising Third Culture Kids: Where Is Home?
Beijing Kids
And here’s the second article, which quotes me before interviewing sharing two interviews (an ATCK and a parent of TCKs). There are some really great stories and insights in them!
“It was sometimes hard for my children to fit into new schools and countries after a move, especially in non-international environments. This was always painful for me to watch, and I always told them to “take care of the newcomers” wherever they went as a way to empathize with and cope with these painful experiences. Another challenge for me was being okay with the fact that even though it is easy for them to fit in and live anywhere in the world, they remain foreigners in their (my) “home country” of France. I think this bothers me more than it does them.”
“It was always heartbreaking to leave countries where I had close friends. This isn’t always avoidable of course, but it helps if parents plan bigger chunks of time in places, staying long enough in one place so that their child can finish high school or middle school, and ensuring that the academic continuity stays the same between schools where possible. As a child, I was also attached to my toys and keepsakes; these were among the few constants in my life. I felt that my parents didn’t always respect that and left many things behind. This was traumatizing for me. Parents should try to be patient with and listen to their child telling them what’s important in their world, and then they can work together to see how memories and feelings can be honored better.”

A Little Advice to My Pre-Expat Self
Taking Route
Somehow I missed this post in April, but it’s too good to miss sharing with you now! It includes five pieces of advice the author, reflecting back, would give herself as a new expat. There is so much wisdom in these five points I’m not sure how to choose only a little to share – so instead, here’s her conclusion, and my strong advice to go read the whole thing!
“I can’t go back in time and give this advice to my pre-expat self, but I can learn these lessons well and continue to use them as I move forward in my expat journey. I hear expat life can be circular. Life overseas is periods of grief and loss, excitement to mundane, over and over and over. So as I look to the future, I am thankful for the lessons and the process as I move forward.”

Embracing Failure to Create Change
Dr Anisha Abraham
Anisha reflects on a powerful keynote address from Caleb Meakins at the recent FIGT 2019 conference in Bangkok. I had a great chat with Caleb after his keynote, and we talked about the importance of TCKs experiencing failure as they grow and develop. Anisha’s reflections are interesting, and at the end she links to an older post on letting teens fail which is also worth a read.
“Caleb takes the fear out of starting something new by asking us what we would do if we could try something and it was… impossible to fail? The answer to this question may be our life dream or passion. Caleb’s point is that if we would do it if we couldn’t fail, why not try it even if we may fail or it didn’t quite work out?. . .Caleb’s story makes a good case for why parents need to stop protecting kids from failure. Instead, we need to allow young people to take risks and try new pathways in the spirit of making the world a better place.”

I’ll be your friend if you let me.
A Life Overseas
I really, really appreciate this short post. It acknowledges a hard truth of expat life: when you say goodbye to so many people, it gets difficult to keep your heart tender toward newcomers. When you know investing in a deeper relationship means investing in a more painful goodbye, it’s easier to protect your deeper self behind a wall. This logic is something many TCKs grow up with. And in this one short post, Anisha illustrates the power of offering your friendship to another person. And in sharing her attitude of openness, she invites (challenges) all of us to do the same.
“The years roll by. We say painful goodbye after painful goodbye. The wall sometimes seems like an inviting place. I understand now the emotional safety others have sought behind it. But the wall is not for me. I’ll be your friend if you let me.”

5 lessons from 3 months abroad
Marloes Huijsmans (LinkedIn)
This is a short piece reflecting on what has helped one person in a period of international transition. And yet, these simple pieces of advice are gold!! A beautiful summary of a lot of the advice I follow for myself and offer others. I particularly love the description of learning to value the social part of social media – and shout outs to some great people in the expat connection field!
“There is a whole online community that is ready to guide you that I did not have any clue of. I have to admit…I am a very late adapter, thinking facebook was just to get likes to make you feel better and Instagram a way to show off. Boy, was I wrong! With special thanx to Emily Rogers (expat parenting abroad) Amel Derragui (tandem nomads) and Sundae Schneider-Bean (expats on purpose) who introduced me to the right persons, provided me with tips, very interesting podcasts and free guidebooks to start the business.”

My Trailing Spouse Resumé
Tales from a Small Planet
I love this fun and lighthearted take on the skills acquired through multiple international moves! I actually think it’s a great exercise for expats in general to think through – what are the skills (both serious and silly) that you’ve acquired over the years, and moves? As Kelly notes at the end, “Of course, I have another resumé that I’m preparing for employers. But I like this one better!”
“After 29 years experience as a expatriate spouse, 17 of them overseas, I bring a unique perspective to any crazy venture. With 10 international moves under my belt to date, my vocabulary of profanity is impressive, while my organizational skills have been refined to the level of obsession. I am particularly fond of making lists on napkins and sticking post-it notes to household items, pets, and children. Unfazed by incomprehensible languages, Euroglyphic appliances, and funky plumbing, I make a house into a home wherever I land.”

When the robots come, the robots will be racist
gal-dem
Finally, here’s something slightly off topic, but an important point worthy of consideration. The author discusses implicit bias and ways it is being translated to AI systems. She then considers ways these biases could impact people through the adoption of AI in various contexts.
“I’m not sure what the equivalent of unconscious bias training is for a computer system but it might look something like the ‘What-If’ tool Google released to identify the exact moment that bias kicks in during machine-based decision making. I can’t help but think identifying when biases occur misses the point. It feels ironic that we’re now faced with a need to build de-biasing technology into our machines when what we should be focussing on is eliminating the homogeneity that allowed for this to arise in the first place. Call me paranoid, but I also believe we should be developing tools that mitigate the potential for harm that inevitably goes hand-in-hand with the existence of technology that can be used as an automated profiling service. Talking about the lack of diversity in tech has seemingly become mainstream but not enough is being done to stop our machines from perpetuating cycles of disadvantage and discrimination in the meantime.”