5 Tips for Deliberately Parenting International Children (internationally mobile children / expat kids / third-culture kids)

Have you ever wondered if you’re doing the right thing by bringing up your children “overseas”?  What impact an international childhood will have on their identity?  How you can ensure they turn out to be confident, adaptable, emotionally intelligent and resilient? 

And, with all the parenting advice that’s out there, what’s really important to keep in mind specifically when raising international children? 

If you’re like most parents, you’re focussed on bringing out the best in your child and unlocking their full potential.  You want to support them to thrive and flourish in transitions and encourage them to be and become their best selves.

When you find yourself raising children abroad or away from your “home” country, the anxiety, concerns and parental issues can often increase just because there is the added dimensions of the unknown and distance from extended family support.

Maybe you have found yourself in this situation because you’ve chosen to move to a new country, or your spouse’s career took you there.  Maybe you’re an expat family and one or both of your careers has you moving internationally every few years.  Maybe your partner is from a different country and you’ve moved there to raise your family. 

Whatever situation has brought you to this point, you now find yourself raising children in a foreign country and wondering, am I doing the right thing?  What effect will this have on them?

The good news is that there has been extensive research on internationally mobile/expat children and third-country kids and it strongly proves that these children are far more:

• Flexible
• Adaptable
• Culturally Aware
• Open-minded
• Well educated (with a higher percentage having higher degrees)
• Able to make friends quickly
• Comfortable with their own company

I think all parents would agree that these are pretty great attributes for any child to have!

Unfortunately, the research also shows that there these children are more likely to face these unique issues:

• A different sense of identity/belonging – not quite belonging to any one country or “home” being everywhere and nowhere. This can often later affect the child’s self-confidence and sense of self.
• The stress of transitions – additional anxiety that comes with the unknown of each move and the grief that comes with saying goodbye.

• Highly intense or superficial friendships – due to the limited timeframes, friendships either tend to develop deeply and quickly (because there is time pressure) or just stay superficial (to prevent further hurt and grief when it’s time to part, or because they don’t quite “fit-in”).

How can you help mitigate these potential issues?   And how can you ensure that your child is and becomes the confident, resilient, independent, compassionate, happy and secure person that you wish for them?

Here are 5 Deliberate (Peaceful) Parenting Tips for raising international children:

1. Create Family Rituals and Memories

International children often struggle with their sense of identity.  It’s the cliché that they identify with “belonging everywhere but nowhere”.  They don’t strongly identify with your own home country.  They might identify somewhat to the country where they are living, but yet, they know they are different and are not “local”. 

Whether you are intentional about it or not, there will be some cultural values and identity markers that you will inevitably pass onto your children, no matter where you are living.  This might come through in the foods that you cook, the traditions that you celebrate or the languages that you speak. 

You probably take trips “home” to wherever you are from to see extended family and this will further their exposure to their cultural heritage and deepen their sense of connection with your home country.

But be prepared that if you are raising international children, they may not fully identify with one particular country or call a particular country “home”.  And although that’s not the norm in the world, that’s totally okay.

What you do want to do is ensure that your child knows that “home” means “family” and that you create a sense of “home” through your own family rituals and memories.  These are much more important than for non-internationally mobile families as they help create a real sense of grounding and security.  So that “home” becomes wherever the “family home” is, and is not tied to a particular house/flat or country.

Rituals could include family dinners on a Sunday night, Friday night movie nights, pancakes and smoothies on Saturday morning or family outings on the weekends.  Things that bind you all together, help you laugh together, have fun and increase your connection with one another.  These are important childhood memories and critical memories to create a sense of “home” for your international child.

Also ensure that you stay connected with extended family as much a possible and on a regular basis.  Technology has made this so much easier for modern international families!  Have regular Facetime/Skype video calls with Grandparents or Aunts/Uncles, and make trips at least annually or bi-annually to see extended family members in person and have that personal connection time.

Children are hard-wired to be emotionally connected to us.  Having this positive relationship with us is what enables them to have a strong sense of self, identity and feel safe to go out into the world and explore and take risks – because they know that we will be there for them if they ever need us. 

Having this strong relationship also helps strengthen their core values and that allows them to stand up to social pressure with confidence and feel good about who they are and what they stand for.

2. Learn the local language, culture, sights

It’s a sad truth of expatriate life that often you can live in many countries but, due to a variety of factors, never mastered the language of any of them. 

I have personal experience in this area, having learned a little of my parent’s native language (Japanese) and the language (Chinese) of the country where I spent part of my childhood, but having never progressed to a level of “fluency” in either. 

And I am not alone. 

Learning the local language of the country where you are living is absolutely critical for your child’s identity development.  It will allow them to “fit in” better socially, make more friends, understand their environment, the local culture and be more independent as a result. 

It also will give them the flexibility to be able to return to that country later in their life if they feel the need to explore that part of their heritage a little more.  (And I won’t even begin to go into the benefits of multilingualism for our children’s brain development and future! That’s a whole other article!)

It helps if you, the parent, can lead by example and also do your best to learn the local language.  That will demonstrate your willingness to integrate with locals, understand the local customs and the effort it takes to do so.  It will most likely show them that learning a language takes determination and perseverance, skills that we all wish to encourage in our children, even if for them, language acquisition is much easier!

Exploration of the local culture and sights is also important while you are living in a foreign country.  (Don’t forget to document this with photos and other “souvenirs” so that your children can look back on these moments later.)

Get to know the country, allow your children to know the country, its customs and people so that they don’t leave feeling like they never really knew the place and was always just an “outsider” or “visitor”. 

Even if you are a perpetual expat family and only in a country for one or two years at a time, making the effort to explore as much of the country as possible will allow your children to develop a stronger sense of connection with that country.  It will always be part of your child’s childhood and will inform their sense of self (who they believe they are) and future identity. 

3. Encourage a Growth Mindset

You might have heard of a researcher by the name of Carol Dweck (Stamford/Columbia Univ.), who came up with the idea of Growth vs. Fixed mindsets. 

After years of studying children and their motivation, she determined that some children have “Growth Mindsets” – where they believe intelligence can be developed and that if they put in the effort, hard work and persevere, they can achieve a desired result or solve a problem.  These children embrace challenges, persist when faced with setbacks, learn from criticism and have a greater sense of free-will and impact on the world. 

This is contrast to those with a “Fixed Mindset”, where they believe that their level of intelligence is fixed and that if they cannot do something easily, then they can’t do it at all and aren’t sufficiently intelligent or skilled to do it.  These children give up more easily, are less resilient and persevering and tend to feel outcomes in the world are pre-determined.

The truth is, we all have a balance of fixed and growth mindsets, depending on the situation and other personal factors, like how we’re feeling at a particular moment.  But it is important to try to ensure that a Growth Mindset tends to prevail in our children so that they develop a healthy self-esteem and a flexible, “can-do” attitude.

How do you encourage a Growth Mindset?  Remember that every word and action that you as a parent use with your children sends them a message.  Try to send them a message that says “you’re a developing person and I believe in you and your development”, rather than “you are a xyz kind of person”.  When they make a mistake, give them constructive feedback without judgement so that they can learn how to fix it or do differently next time. 

Use Descriptive Praise when commenting about the behaviours, actions and accomplishments of your children – describe in detail what they have done or what you observe, without judgement.  Praise effort, strategies and processes rather than outcomes and achievements.  Focus on expanding skills and knowledge rather than goals.  Avoid superlatives or praise for the sake of it and avoid the vague “well done”.

All of this is NOT about making your child feel good.  It’s about developing a healthy sense of self and self-esteem, which will enable your international child to have smoother transitions, develop healthy relationships and adapt to different environments without compromising their sense of who they are and what they are capable of.

4. Empower not Entitle

It is too easy for international children to end up displaying traits of “spoiled” children. After all, they have probably travelled and had exposure to more of the world than most of their peers, which by itself is a massive gift that you have given them.  We don’t often realise this because we are surrounded by similar families and take it for granted that our children have this exposure. 

What international families also often don’t realise is that most people in the world spend the first 18-25 years of their life living in the same place, taking holidays only in their own country and probably once a year or less.  Budget flights and internet travel sites have made this slightly less so in recent years, however, it is still probably true that the majority of children haven’t seen as much of the world as your own have. 

Many international children also attend international or private schools, where the developed curriculum also affords them exposure to a broad range of academic and cultural subjects, as well as physical activities and sports.  This is another massive gift that you are giving to your child – to be able to consistently develop their physical and mental capabilities in such a broad range is a foundation that will set them up to develop their full potential.

Having a particular sport, instrument or activity that interests them can be helpful for an international child.  This is something that can be part of their lives no matter where they live and will allow them to have an instant sense of belonging wherever they go, making transitions slightly easier. 

For example, if your child plays football, he can play with other kids in the playground, he can join the local team and have an instant social network.  This is not just true for international children of course, giving all children these skills allows them to forge relationships in life in new situations.

With all these amazing opportunities that we are giving our children, it is easy to be concerned about developing an entitlement mentality. 

How is this best avoided?

The biggest and simplest thing you can do to temper any potential entitlement mentality is to empower your children to contribute to the family and household.  Even if you have household help, make sure it is a requirement that your children also help out. 

Children from 2 years and up can help with general family duties – laying the table, loading the dishwasher/washing the dishes, assisting in the kitchen cooking, folding laundry, cleaning windows, tidying their rooms, emptying the rubbish, walking the dog, feeding the pets, etc. 

Not only does this teach them valuable life skills, it also gives them a sense of belonging and contribution – that they are an important part of the family unit and that everyone supports one another to keep the household running. 

Empowering your children to contribute to the family does exactly that – it empowers them and encourages independence.  It helps demonstrate that they are capable beings and with time and practice, their capability increases.  If they have a list of things they need to do to contribute, try to give them some flexibility on timing so that they are further able to exercise independent judgement on when they do what they need to do.

Finally, in a world of instant gratification, try to encourage the experience of delayed gratification where possible – allow your children to “earn” treats over time with extra contributions so that they experience putting in sustained effort and the passage of time to reach a desired goal. 

Be careful not to spoil your children because you feel guilty (whether for moving them constantly, working too much or any other reason) or just because you can.  It won’t lead to the outcomes you want, and although in the short-term you think you’re being kind, you will actually be doing a disservice to their future selves.

5. Emotion Coach the heartaches

It is inevitable that our international children will have to experience the stress of transitions and the heartache and grief of goodbyes at some point in their childhood.  Whether it is because they are moving away or a friend is moving, that’s just part of life as an internationally mobile / expat / third-culture child. 

My daughter experienced this when she was 8 years old.  Her best friend left to move “home”.  It was heart-breaking to witness her grief from this parting. 

Our role as parents is not to prevent the heartache and challenging situations in our children’s lives, but to support them through these times, teaching them how to identify and manage their emotions and how to cope. 

We cannot prevent our children from facing tough situations, but we can guide them in childhood through these so that they learn to be resilient and emotionally intelligent.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify one’s own emotions and manage them, but also be sensitive to other people’s emotions and know how to empathise. 

When we use the tool of Emotion Coaching with our children, we are essentially modelling empathy to them, letting them know that we “get it” – we understand what they are going through and are there for them. 

Reflect back to them what you think they are feeling or going through, without judgement.  “You must be pretty sad that we’re moving again and you’re going to be leaving your friends.” 

With younger children, you will need to help them identify what emotions they are experiencing – often, these children lack the vocabulary to define the range of emotions that they find stirring up within them. 

Older children too may not immediately be able to understand why they are feeling a certain way or what to do about it.  They may need guidance from you to know that it’s okay to feel sadness and grief at a parting, or maybe even resentment, that such feelings are totally normal, and you “get it”. 

Ask them for ideas on how they might make themselves or their friends feel better, or how to make the looming transition easier.  Often children come up with amazingly creative solutions to working through their emotions and because it is their idea, they tend to work!

By incorporating these 5 Deliberate Parenting strategies in your daily family life, you will reap the many benefits of raising an internationally mobile or expat family and limit the downsides. 

Not that the transitions won’t still be tough, but your children will have a stronger self-esteem, identity, resilience and emotional intelligence to be able to manage these tougher moments.  You will empower them to seize opportunities and experiences and to be and become their best selves.  As emerging adults, they will have the world at their feet and, with a growth and open mindset, will be set to influence and impact the world!