S07E09 The Truth About TCKs You Probably Don't Know With Tanya Crossman

Have you ever wondered how growing up overseas shapes a child—both the good and the challenging? What if some of the struggles TCKs face could be prevented with the right support? And as a missionary parent, how do you balance your own well-being while making sure your kids are emotionally cared for?

In this episode, from her research of more than 2,000 third culture kids, TCK expert Tanya Crossman unpacks groundbreaking statistics and new information on the hidden struggles of Third Culture Kids, including the impact of trauma, emotional neglect, and parental stress.But don’t worry—this conversation is packed with hope!

Tanya shares powerful ways to help TCKs heal, build resilience, and thrive in their unique upbringing.

Whether you're raising TCKs, serving them, or one yourself, this episode is full of eye-opening insights and practical tools you won’t want to miss!

Resources Mentioned:

1. TCK Training

📌 Website: https://www.tcktraining.com/
TCK Training provides research-based resources, training, and coaching for Third Culture Kids (TCKs) and their families. Their work focuses on helping TCKs develop resilience, navigate transitions, and process childhood experiences.

• Resources for TCKs: https://www.tcktraining.com/courses
  • Includes guides, videos, courses and tools to help TCKs navigate challenges.
• Research Reports & White Papers: https://www.tcktraining.com/research
  • Publishes research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and mental health in TCKs.
  • Offers downloadable white papers on findings related to TCK well-being.

2. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Study

📌 Overview: The ACE study examines how difficult childhood experiences impact mental and physical health in adulthood. The TCK Training team applied this research to TCKs, finding that TCKs often have higher ACE scores in certain areas (such as parental mental health challenges and emotional neglect).
📌 Learn More: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html

3. Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs)

📌 Overview: PCEs research, led by Dr. Christina Bethel, looks at protective factors that help children build resilience despite adversity.
📌 Key Factors for Resilience:

• Strong relationships with at least two caring adults (not just parents).
• Feeling part of a community.
• Having a sense of belonging in school or a peer group.
• Engaging in meaningful traditions.
   📌 Learn More: https://bit.ly/43GP2qA

4. "Misunderstood" by Tanya Crossman

📌 Purchase Book: https://a.co/d/dlNBtE6
📌 Summary: This book explores the unique experiences of Third Culture Kids, including their challenges, strengths, and the ways their upbringing shapes them. It provides insights for parents, educators, and caregivers on how to support TCKs effe

Thanks for listening! Email us your questions at care@modernday.org

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Chapters

• 0:36 Meet Tanya Crossman: TCK Expert
• 0:43 Understanding TCKs and Trauma
• 3:52 Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
• 5:21 Household Dysfunctions and Mental Health
• 10:15 Emotional Abuse and Neglect in TCKs
• 14:25 Parental Self-Care and Relational Repair
• 21:44 Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs)
• 24:22 Impact of Unaddressed ACEs on TCKs
• 25:12 Mental Health Statistics Among TCKs
• 27:13 Stigma and Diagnosis in Missionary Communities
• 30:30 Parental Guidance and Support
• 33:25 Resources for TCKs and Parents
• 35:26 Hope and Healing for Adult TCKs
• 43:59 Final Thoughts and Resources

Transcript

Welcome to Modern Day Missionaries, a podcast by Modern Day Missions created for missionaries by missionaries. I'm your host, Stephanie Gutierrez 

[00:00:09] Stephanie Gutierrez: Today, third culture kid expert Tanya Crossman shares findings from a study done with nearly 2,000 TCKs, and the results are eye opening. 

I'll be straight with you, some of the findings are quite sobering, but Tanya also shares the huge benefits of growing up overseas, powerful ways to help TCKs heal, and proactive things we can do to help set them up to thrive and build resilience.  

[00:00:36] Stephanie Gutierrez: Hey, Tanya, thanks so much for joining us today.

[00:00:38] Tanya Crossman: Thanks so much for having me. I'm really glad to be here. 

[00:00:41] Stephanie Gutierrez: I love what we are talking about today. A little bit of a heavier subject, but it's also one that's filled with hope, and that's: TCKs and trauma. And this is something that you've been studying and researching for years; this is something you have personal experience in. I want to hear a little bit more about what prompted you to study trauma and TCKs specifically.

[00:01:02] Tanya Crossman: Well, I've been working with TCKs for nearly 20 years now, so I had heard a lot of stories, a lot of family dysfunction, a lot of difficult experiences they've been exposed to by being on the field. I knew that wasn't all TCKs, but it was enough TCKs that I wanted to know more about how widespread some of this was.

So I'd started doing some research, not trauma specific, but more TCK stories in general, especially for my first book, which came out in 2016. And then life got sidetracked when the pandemic happened and my international education consulting business kind of fell apart and I was stuck in Australia when Lauren Wells reached out.

Now Lauren has a background in preventive care, so looking at what are the things we can do that provide better outcomes because we're intervening before things go wrong. So in her background, she knew a lot about adverse childhood experiences. Now that was new to me, but it explained a lot about what I'd seen.

So when she came with this proposal to join forces and do some research on TCKs, I was sold; I was all in. And so I started working with TCK training, really contracting to run a survey. It turned into years of working and being part of the team and running the research department now where we do a lot of work looking at both what's happening in terms of potential traumas that TCKs are exposed to, and now switching to look a lot at preventive things. Like how can we provide resilience for TCKs?

[00:02:45] Stephanie Gutierrez: We've got all different kinds of people listening. We've got parents of TCKs, we've got TCKs, people who serve them, and I'm sure they have a million questions. I know I have a million questions.

I mean, one that comes to mind off the top of my head is that all TCKs, I feel like, go through really tough stuff in life, just in a different way. I don't want to say more than, it seems like more than, but certainly in a more intense way than maybe people who've never lived in another country.

How are you able to differentiate between TCKs who have just gone through really tough stuff and TCKs who have gone through actual trauma?

[00:03:19] Tanya Crossman: Well, there's a few things. What we like to do is we like to use research that's already existing in the field of prevention science, in other kinds of fields that have only looked at single country populations so far. We take that existing research and apply those same questions, that same methodology, and apply that to the TCK population, so we can compare what's happening in the TCK population and what that looks like compared to what's happening in other populations. 

One of the biggest things we did is we did a survey on ACE scores, so Adverse Childhood Experiences, ACEs.This is a field of study that's been going for 30 years. It started in the US, but there's been studies all over the world. One of the big things that happened with the ACE survey was they discovered a link between having a certain number of these adverse experiences, types of adverse experiences in childhood, and negative outcomes in adulthood. So once you had four or more out of ten, the risks of negative outcomes in your physical health, your emotional and psychological health, in various social factors increased dramatically at that point.

So we wanted to go to look at TCKs and think, well, are we seeing the same thing happen in TCKs? Do they have a high risk of these ACE scores, or is it pretty similar to what we see in other populations? And what do the outcomes look like?

[00:04:50] Stephanie Gutierrez: So the ACE questions that you mentioned, I believe there's, there's 10 of them, if I'm correct. And so those 10 things, are those all directly correlated to trauma?

[00:05:01] Tanya Crossman: Basically, so there's 10 ACE questions and there's two categories. So half of them, five of them, direct abuse towards a child. This is abuse and neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, physical abuse, physical neglect, and sexual abuse. All of this has to happen before the age of 18 for it to be an adverse childhood experience.

And then the other five are what are called household dysfunctions. These are things that are happening in the home environment that can threaten thriving for children. So, mostly it's what's happening with the adults in their home. 

Is an adult living in their home struggling with substance abuse? Is there a domestic abuse situation happening? Is there a divorce of the parents they live with? Is an adult in their home incarcerated? Is there an adult in their home struggling with mental illness, depression, or a suicide attempt? So what's happening in the home that is contributing to an unsafe environment, or just creating difficulty for the child growing up. So it's half and half in that respect.

And one of the things we found when we started studying this in TCKs, is that the incidence of household dysfunction was lower in TCKs, except, household adult mental illness. TCKs were twice as likely to report living with an adult, who had a mental health condition.

Which makes sense, because there's existing research showing that people working overseas, with all else being equal, same job, same company, the ones working overseas were two and a half times more likely to experience depression, anxiety, and other internalizing mental health conditions. So we would expect, therefore, for kids growing up overseas to be more likely to have a parent who is struggling with a mental health condition.

[00:06:58] Stephanie Gutierrez: Wow. Okay. So I'm, I'm picturing a TCK listening to this and they're probably hearing some of those ACEs you rattled off thinking, okay, I can identify with some of those. 

I'm married to a TCK and I'm a mom of TCKs. So I'm hearing it from that perspective and I'm also hearing it from the mom perspective and for a parent listening, and you might think, shoot, I think some of those things have happened to my child. And some of those are things that a parent can control, and some of those are things that a parent can't necessarily control. And that can bring in a lot of guilt or frustration and all the accompanying feelings.

 And so I just want to say too, as you and I are talking, we're going to go for the hope route too. We're going to talk about what you can do. So we're starting difficult in the beginning, but this is not where we're going to end. So if you're a parent listening and you're feeling guilty, you know, shake that off, Jesus is here. Tanya's got good stuff for you 

[00:07:51] Tanya Crossman: Well, and this is why we do this research is because we actually think living overseas is a really good thing and we want to help families get the most out of it, but if we don't know what potential problems are, then we can't address them. Once we know we can do something about it.

[00:08:06] Stephanie Gutierrez: I'm so glad that you said that because there are so many benefits to living abroad and the rich experiences and the way that they shape people. And I mean, I mean, we could probably list off a thousand things and maybe I'll ask you some of those even later. So this is looking at the tough stuff, but we want to recognize too, don't feel bad that you took your child overseas because if God brought you over there, he's got good plans for them and he's going to help you in this process as well. 

[00:08:32] Tanya Crossman: And in previous research I've done, the vast majority of TCKs say that they are glad they grew up that way. They're thankful they're a TCK and wouldn't take it back if they could. So, what we want is we want an integrated picture that is both hard and good.

[00:08:47] Stephanie Gutierrez: Boom. I love that. And I want to go back to something you said just a second ago, where you were talking about the parents and the mental illness, the anxiety, the depression. And I heard in an interview that you did recently, you were saying that you felt the ACE scores were almost more of a reflection of the parent's stress and cortisol levels in the kids. So I'd love to just unpack that a little bit, because we're, we're looking at this focus on TCKs, but some of that is because of a parent's ability to take care of themselves as well. That self care piece. 

[00:09:20] Tanya Crossman: Absolutely. A hundred percent. So when you look at those ACE scores in a lot of places around the world, when a person has a high ACE score, it's because their parents weren't able to provide a healthy environment growing up. And yet what we're seeing with TCKs is lower rates of physical abuse, much lower rates of things like substance abuse in the home, incarceration, divorce, things like that.In large part because when those things are happening in the family environment, the family doesn't go overseas. They're not accepted to go overseas, they're not sent overseas, they can't get visas overseas. So you take a giant slab of TCAs, you're not going to get as many who are having those kinds of issues.

So what we're seeing are parents who are providing good stable homes for their kids overall, but parents who are also struggling. Alright, and so parents who are having issues with their mental health, and so the other two things that we saw were quite high amongst TCKs that were driving high ACE scores in TCKs were emotional abuse and emotional neglect.

So this is not children saying, I was emotionally abused, I was emotionally neglected. The questions do not have abuse or neglect in them anywhere. The questions, and these are the same questions that have been used across multiple countries around the world. The questions are saying, did these specific things happen in your experience growing up?

Did a parent or an adult in your home emotionally manipulate you, blackmail you for having emotions, swear at you, yell at you frequently, things like that. That falls under the umbrella of emotional abuse and 44 percent of TCK said that was happening in their home growing up. 

[00:11:09] Stephanie Gutierrez: Okay. So these are some things for parents to watch out for would be things that they could say, or they could do that would cause emotional abuse or emotional neglect. 

[00:11:22] Tanya Crossman: So for emotional neglect, you were asking them, you know, did you feel loved? Did you feel special? Did you feel important? Did you feel your family was a team that had your back? Things like that. And 39 percent of TCK said that they didn't believe that was true. So they had that neglect, those things were missing.

And, and this doesn't mean that parents are bad parents. Emotional abuse, emotional neglect are of all ten, the two that are most able to be remedied by parent education. By parents just understanding what their kids need in order to feel these things. And the hardest to do when you're going through transition;

when you have the least to give and your kids are the most needy at the same time. So of course this is going to be a struggle for international families dealing with transition.

[00:12:15] Stephanie Gutierrez: Yeah, okay. So speaking to that for just a second, I mean, if there are some parents listening and they're like, shoot, there's a chance some of those things may have happened in my house, and I didn't even know. What would be some things that they could do to begin to help remedy that. 

[00:12:30] Tanya Crossman: Relational repair is incredibly effective with parents and children. This is where you acknowledge that you got it wrong, you apologize to your child, you have a plan for what you're going to do next time and you can articulate it to your child: this is what I'm going to try to do in future, this is what I'm going to try and do instead. And you follow through on it. 

That level of relational repair is incredibly powerful. In fact, there is research that shows when this level of relational repair takes place, the parent child bond is stronger afterward than it was than when that problem happened in the first place. Which really is in line with all kinds of resilience research, where we know that children develop resilience by going through hard things with the support of caring adults.

If you go through hard things, you don't get support, it leads to emotional fragility. But you go through hard things with support, it develops resilience. And the same thing's true. No parent is perfect, every parent makes mistakes. But when you face those mistakes and you work through it with your child and you repair the relationship through apologizing and working it through, and having a plan, you actually build a stronger bond with your child.

And it goes against the grain for so many people that feel like as a parent I have to have it all together, I have to have all the answers, but that's not what research shows is what works for kids.  

[00:13:55] Stephanie Gutierrez: That makes so much sense. It makes me think of all the moments when I've apologized for just totally screwing up. And first of all, like the surprise on your kid's face when you, when you do it, they're like, you're saying you did it wrong, mom. I mean they get almost a little happy and a little mad at the same time, cause they feel like they have the right to be mad again and all these funny feelings. I do think it's a really bonding experience. So that is such a great point. 

Okay. So those are some things that they can do. And then of course you mentioned taking care of themselves. So how interesting to think that self care for missionaries is a way of actually caring for their children. 

[00:14:31] Tanya Crossman: It's an essential way to care for their children. If you have nothing to give, I mean, they're the ones that are going to miss out. If you don't have any emotional reserves, how can you meet their emotional needs? And one of the things that these ACE scores and the research we're doing demonstrates is that their physical needs are often being met, but their emotional needs aren't on a really big level.

Those emotional needs really do matter. Having a roof over their head and having them go to the right, you know, good school and, and putting food on the table in itself isn't enough. They also need to feel safe and protected. They need to feel emotionally safe. They need to feel seen and heard and validated.

And when we put those things in place, then our kids are set up for life. But it's so hard to do that when you are burned out and you have nothing to give. 

[00:15:30] Stephanie Gutierrez: Yeah. When you're trying to create things for your children that you don’t even have. Like you're trying to help them believe that they are safe and you don't even believe that you're safe. 

[00:15:35] Tanya Crossman: Exactly. Yes.

[00:15:37] Stephanie Gutierrez: That's tough. That's tough. I mean, I remember when we first moved overseas my daughters just asked all the questions. They wanted to know what we were doing each day, and what's tomorrow? And they just had a thousand questions. I had the same thousand questions and most of my answers were, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's such a feeling of helplessness. And to your point, so often, when we feel most needy is when they're also feeling most needy. 

So what, what would be some suggestions you would give a parent who feels totally depleted?

Let's say they're going through a really difficult situation. They don't have answers, they don't know what to do, they feel lost and their kids are feeling the same way. How do they create some stability in that situation? 

[00:16:20] Tanya Crossman: The first one is to make some priority lists. What can you give up? What's the most important? Because the reality is a lot of the time we're taking on too much. And if you're anything like me, you give everything to everyone else and then you come home and you crash and you have nothing left to give to yourself. You have nothing left to give your partner or your child or whoever it is in your sphere that that also needs.

 If we aren't clear about our priorities and we aren't careful about putting the important things first, the important things end up coming last. So making those priority lists and putting that first. So scheduling time for your kids, for yourself, for your partner, into your calendar first. Before you put everything else in, before you add in work and ministry and those catching up with those people that you feel that you'd have to follow up with all the other stuff that you need to do. Put in the important things first. Then let other things get edged out.

I have found that to be a really helpful way for me to look at life. Because if I am actually on my calendar, my work calendar, I have the blocks of time for spending time with my husband, for spending time with my family, for spending time doing the things I need to do for myself. And I, and they're in there to the point that sometimes I put blocks on my calendar that just say margin. So if I don't take time off this evening, I won't be able to get up for that morning meeting or I have some really late nights that night, so I have to make sure I take some time off in other places. And so I literally put it on my calendar so that I take the time I need for myself to be able to show up where I need to show up.

[00:18:06] Stephanie Gutierrez: That's lovely. 

[00:18:06] Tanya Crossman: So seeing those things as important really does matter. It's a lesson I learned the hard way in ministry, right?

[00:18:14] Stephanie Gutierrez: Great lessons.

[00:18:16] Tanya Crossman: We learn it through burning out by doing it wrong, yeah? 

[00:18:20] Stephanie Gutierrez: I love the calendar thing. It's funny because it's something that sounds so obvious or so common, but it's not something we always do. 

[00:18:28] Tanya Crossman: We squash out ourselves, we squash out our partners, we squash out the family and and other things that are important. 

[00:18:36] Stephanie Gutierrez: It's true! One of our daughters has special needs and she has a thousand questions about what we're doing every moment of the day and tomorrow and the next week and all the things we say. She has a little voice in her head she calls “Miss What’s Next” that always wants to know what's next. And so finally, out of a search for pure sanity's sake, I have a Google calendar, and I made her an account with her email address. So I can put things on her calendar and she can see them. And one of her favorite things is when she can see that she has time with us or her grandparents or her friends.

And so I'm thinking of that as you're saying that, what a beautiful thing for kids, even at a young age to see their parents calendar and see their name on it. Like, wow, there's so and so from church and there's this meeting and there's this meeting and there's me. So even something as simple as that could be really powerful.

[00:19:27] Tanya Crossman: Letting them know they're prioritized. 

I learn a lot from my sister; she is a child educational developmental psychologist, and I get to both learn from all of the stuff she knows at work, and also from what that looks like at home as a mum of two very energetic boys. And how it doesn't work sometimes at home.

She'll be the first one to tell you that the wheels come off very quickly. You go from teaching it very calmly to parents, to your own home and yelling at your children. It's all very good to say something in theory and then to actually live it in practice. One of the things she would do is she had an actual, like a whiteboard that she made a calendar for the kids where they could see this week I'm going to Nana and Grandpa's house and Aunty Tanya's picking me up from school, so they knew these things were happening this week.

Because it one, it answers some of those questions, but two, the prioritizing of knowing, these people in my life are doing this with me this week can make a really big difference. 

[00:20:33] Stephanie Gutierrez: And it's the challenge of first getting on the calendar and then I think sometimes even the greater challenge is keeping it there. Because I can block things off all day long, but then a work project comes up or somebody calls, and if they see their little name on the calendar, but they know that mom will rush to make this person's meeting, and they'll just erase mine. Don't even put it on there unless you're going to commit to keeping it. 

[00:21:00] Tanya Crossman: That is why I put it on my work calendar, because I'll forget that I had planned to do something. 

[00:21:05] Stephanie Gutierrez: Yeah. 

[00:21:06] Tanya Crossman: And especially because I use a lot of calendar software, and people can book meetings with me because I'm talking to people all over the world. Putting those blocks in means that I can't accidentally put a meeting in that time that I planned to do something. I can deliberately choose to, but then it has to be a choice, and I have to think about it to choose to go over the top of something I had planned.

[00:21:32] Stephanie Gutierrez: What would be some of those other proactive things that people can do to help counteract the ACE score or just some of the difficult things that TCK kids go through?

[00:21:44] Tanya Crossman: So there's some fantastic research into positive childhood experiences. So a group of researchers led by Dr. Christina Bethel went, okay, so we know that ACE scores lead to negative outcomes. What about people who have a high ACE score, but they still thrive in adulthood? Let's look at that specific group of people and see what was different for them. Through that research, they came up with positive childhood experiences. And they found that when these were present, people were more likely to have the resilience to thrive, despite those adverse childhood experiences. 

What's interesting is there's eight of them. It's often represented as seven. But one of them is kind of two separate things; there's a lot of overlapping. But if you break it down to the eight, three of them take place in the home, five of them take place in community. And for me, this is a huge thing for parents to hear: you cannot do everything by yourself.

We can't do anything on our own. We have to be part of a community. in order to give our kids everything they need. And so it's really important that kids have access to friends. Having friends throughout childhood and having a sense of belonging in high school specifically are two separate pieces out of the eight.

Belonging to a multi generational community, where they feel like they belong and people have their back is another one. Participating and enjoying community traditions is another one. Having two adults who are not their parents who take a genuine interest in them is another one. So being part of these networks of people is huge.

This is one of the things we can do for our kids is connecting with other people, being part of community. Making space for our kids so you can go out with Auntie or grandparents, whether that's blood relations or it's the people in our community where we live. I had friends in Beijing who were everybody's surrogate grandparents living overseas. There were so many families that they just loved those children so much like they were their own grandchildren because their own grandchildren were an ocean away. And having those people that you really bring into your family circle can make such a big difference. And for you too, to connect for yourself.

[00:24:08] Stephanie Gutierrez: So we've got the ACEs on one side, the difficult things that they're going through. And then we've got these PCEs on the other side that you can counteract with things you can do proactively, things you can do reactively. What happens if they aren't addressed with those, those positive childhood experiences. What happens if we just leave ACEs? And I know we're not saying a guarantee; we're not saying  if you have these ACEs this is what will happen to you. But what happens? The probability of what goes up?

[00:24:41] Tanya Crossman: Well, we have just started the data analysis on our research into this. So, in the past we were just looking at the analysis done in non TCK populations. So higher rates of mental illness, higher rates of some physical illnesses, in particular higher rates of asthma and other autoimmune conditions, higher rates of cancer, higher rates of all kinds of things.

But we now have some data on TCKs specifically. So in January we released the first of our data analysis on this. And what we found is that there is a very clear correlation among TCKs between having a high ACE score and having a negative perception of your childhood. Between a high ACE score and having a much higher rate of both experiencing and being diagnosed with multiple different mental health challenges. 

[00:25:41] Stephanie Gutierrez: Wow. Those are really significant.

[00:25:43] Tanya Crossman: Yeah. So for example among TCKs who had zero ACE scores, 14 percent had a diagnosis of anxiety; among those who had a four plus ACE score, 50%, one half had a diagnosis of anxiety.

[00:26:02] Stephanie Gutierrez: Wow. 

[00:26:05] Tanya Crossman: That's a huge difference.

[00:26:07] Stephanie Gutierrez: What does it look like when you compare it to the general population? Like nowadays what is the average diagnosis for something like anxiety? Because I know I had heard that diagnoses of anxiety had gone up. So I was curious what the correlation would be.

[00:26:29] Tanya Crossman: So in a study across 21 countries, 10 percent of people had an anxiety disorder within the last year. 

[00:26:38] Stephanie Gutierrez: And you just said 50% percent with an ACE score of four or above.

[00:26:42] Tanya Crossman: Yes.

[00:26:43] Stephanie Gutierrez: Yeah, that's pretty high. That's quite a bit higher.

[00:26:47] Tanya Crossman: Yes. But still 14 percent of those who had zero ACE scores. 

[00:26:54] Stephanie Gutierrez: So even with no ACEs, TCKs are experiencing anxiety definitely more than the average population worldwide. Okay. That's good to know. What, what can a parent do with a kid that's experiencing anxiety? 

[00:27:13] Tanya Crossman: Well, I think the first thing is we have to lift some of the stigma. One of the other things we saw is that missionary kids were the least likely to get a diagnosis of anxiety. So of those who experienced anxiety, missionary kids were the least likely to get a diagnosis of those symptoms 

[00:27:33] Stephanie Gutierrez: And why do you think that is? 

[00:27:35] Tanya Crossman: Well, when we then looked at the different school types, only one in five TCKs attending Christian international schools, and one in three who were homeschooled, who experienced anxiety got a diagnosis. And so what we think might be going on there is that there's just more stigma in the missionary community and in these communities around mental health.

That young people growing up in these communities, especially in the missionary world where it's more of a bubble and they're not really exposed to much outside of that world, are just not learning as much about mental health and about the options that exist for treatment. And so when they are experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression or whatever it is, instead of reaching out for health, they are just dealing with it on their own.

That's certainly a story that we've heard from adult TCKs. This sense of, I have to be perfect, I have to do it by myself. In fact, actually, we asked TCKs about different statements and things they might have felt. And one was this pressure that I have to be perfect because everything I do reflects on my parents.

And that was quite high. A lot of TCKs felt that way and also felt the pressure to perform in their passport country. And missionary kids were very likely to say they felt that way. And so I think that a lot of them are internalizing this sense of I just have to do it all by myself.

[00:29:13] Stephanie Gutierrez: Oh, that's so intense. And I think it can be scary for parents too. Because what if all of a sudden you find out your child has anxiety? There comes those feelings of guilt and what have I done wrong? And then kind of that panicky feeling of, how do I even treat this? We're here as a family to minister the gospel to people, if we're all focused on our own trauma, then how are we even going to be effective? I mean, these are thoughts that go through people's minds. If I broach this topic with my kids and they're gonna start talking about trauma and triggers, and then we're going to become inward focused, not outward focused. I mean, what would you say to some of those thoughts that certainly some people are having? 

[00:29:50] Tanya Crossman: There is research that shows that bringing up these topics, asking about things like anxiety, depression, even suicidal ideation, talking about these doesn't put it in someone's head. There is actually research that demonstrates that talking about this doesn't make them more likely to think about it if they weren't already thinking about it. It doesn't actually put the idea in their head. 

What it does is it opens the conversation to be able to talk about it if it is something that they're dealing with. And so there's actually research backing up that opening those conversations isn't going to put something in their head that's not already there. It just gives them the ability to talk about what might already be there. 

So one of the things that we have done with some of this research is we put some statements out there to see how frequent it is that TCKs feel this way. And it gives talking points for parents to be able to go, Hey, I've heard that a lot of people growing up overseas feel this way. Is this a way that you felt? And you can frame it as simply as that. You could say, you know, I read in this paper recently where it says that 54 percent of missionary kids feel  pressure to be perfect when they're living overseas. Is that a way that you've felt before?

It then becomes not about, well, I think you feel this way, or it can just be, I heard that other people feel this way. Is that something that you or maybe your friends have felt? And you can put it like that. Because one of the other things I like to talk to parents about is when we're looking at one in three, one in two, one in four, if it's not your kid, it's their friends that are going through this.

If half of TCKs are experiencing emotional abuse, if half are feeling pressure to be perfect, if half, are experiencing some form of anxiety or depression, if it's not your child, it's their friend. 

[00:31:51] Stephanie Gutierrez: Well, and it could be their TCK friend or their MK friend. It also could be in the countries they're living in. I mean, I certainly remember with my kids growing up, they had friends who were going through unbelievable things. So even for kids who aren't experiencing some of those ACEs or some of that anxiety, it's still, let's say that it's not your kid, it's still giving them tools.

[00:32:18] Tanya Crossman: It's allowing them to feel comfortable to tell us what's happening in their friendships and in their worlds to be a safe place for them to talk.

[00:32:24] Stephanie Gutierrez: Otherwise they're carrying that by themselves and that's heavy stuff. We think as adults, sometimes we're managing all the tough stuff and they're just kids. Having lived abroad with teenagers, the stories that they are holding for their friends are monumental. They're huge. And it's every bit as heavy as the stuff that we're carrying. 

[00:32:46] Tanya Crossman: I mean, we know that Gen Alpha and Gen Z believe that loyalty is extremely important in friendships. And so it can be very hard for them to share. And so creating that safety at home where they know that they can tell you anything and it's not going to go anywhere else, and it's not going to get gossiped about and they're not going to hear it back from someone else's mom that, you told them that. It's not going to get around. Creating that safe space where they feel free to tell you whatever's going on is incredibly important so that they feel that you've got their back no matter what's happening at school. 

[00:33:25] Stephanie Gutierrez: And you mentioned some talking points just a second ago to Tanya. Is is that something that people are able to find online that you have on your site or where can they get a hold of something like that?

[00:33:35] Tanya Crossman: If you go to tcktraining.com/research we make all of our research available without a paywall because we think everyone deserves access to this. And so if you first look at what we released on January 20th, you can go through a list of strengths that TCKs see in themselves. There's a list of struggles that TCKs have faced. There's a list of how they see their parents' occupation, how they view their childhood overall, and these are all statements. And so you can use these statements as talking points, as things to ask your child, whether they're still at home, whether they're an adult TCK who's out of the home.

You can even have conversations about this with adult TCKs, you know, or just with other people in your sphere, to just talk about this because this is something that's happening. 

[00:34:30] Stephanie Gutierrez: You're right. I mean, it was even as I was reading through some of the white papers on there and reading through ACEs, which, you know, I did my master's in human services counseling a couple of years ago. So I learned about ACEs then, but I hadn't thought about it in the context of TCKs. And so I started talking to a few TCKs that I knew and were like, hey are you comfortable talking about ACEs? And it was very eyeopening to hear some of their responses. And so for adults listening to this, who are TCKs themselves, there is so much they can learn because that's that whole reparative process.

It's not just about parents helping kids while their little kids repair. As adults, if you've never done the work, there is work to be done and there's restoration that can take place as well. So what would you say to some adult TCKs listening in who are like, okay, I think I need to talk to somebody.

Where can they begin?

[00:35:26] Tanya Crossman: The first thing is just to breathe in that awareness that it's not just you and you're not alone. It's incredible how powerful those words can be. Just absorbing the fact that I'm not the only one who's been through this. Almost every adult TCK I know has at some point had that revelation that these things I've been through that were so difficult to carry, that I thought was just me, that either I wasn't coping, or I was too stupid, or everyone else could manage and not me; almost every adult TCK has had that moment where they've realized, wait, other people went through this?

And, and so if that's the moment that you're having right now with some of this stuff, that's okay. Take some time to rest in the fact that, yeah, other people have been through this too. It isn't just you. There's nothing wrong with you. And that's a great place to start. One of the best things that we can do is to start processing what we've been through because it affects us long term.

Um, I interviewed a TCk in his 60s, and he said, I really didn't start processing how this had affected me until my late forties, early fifties. And if I'd known this in my twenties, I would have had a completely different career path because I reacted to people in the workplace out of these triggers from my childhood. From being told I was moving in a couple of days or whatever it was, right?

Like, we acknowledge these things have happened and then we start processing it, we can change what happens from here on out. The book, Unstacking Your Grief Tower, it's a pretty short read, but takes a bit of time to process. It's a great way to work through that yourself as an adult TCK.

There's also, if you'd rather a different way of working through that, there's an online course that you can work through at your own pace on our website. And there's coaching to work through it with somebody; things like that so that you don't have to be alone. 

We also even have some free resources for TCKs as well. So you can just go tcktraining.com/for-TCKs for a whole bunch of stuff there to help you get on your path. But there's also so many stories out there, there's podcasts and vlogs and lots of people sharing these stories, so you know that you're not alone.

[00:37:57] Stephanie Gutierrez: And it's worth the work. I mean, sometimes it's that whole, well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Well, it is broke. I mean, like I, the analogy I like to use, I'm sure I'm not original in saying it though, is it's like a bone that's healed incorrectly. It was broken and it wasn't set properly and it healed incorrectly.

And so you can't always see it. I mean, if you glance at somebody's arm, you just see the skin. So it can be invisible to you, it can be invisible to everybody else, and it could even kind of work. There's even things that you can do. It could even work really well. But the older you get, the more it's gonna start to bother you and you're never gonna have full function of your arm.

And to begin that process, it first is a re-break. And that happened to my brother in law. Literally his bones healed incorrectly and he had to have it rebroken and it was so painful and so difficult. And so far, I think a lot of people's like, well, why would I want to do that? You're telling me to want to begin a difficult, painful process. Yes. Yes, because, and I've been through a re-braking process myself and because once you set it correctly and begin to get the healing, then you do regain that function again. 

You do see things in a different way, and like you said, it opens your eyes up to new possibilities. You can hear God's voice, I think, in a fresh, new, clear way. You can identify with other people who've been through similar things. It changes you so profoundly. So for people who just want to keep things in the box and locked up and on a shelf, it's tempting. We know, Tanya and I know it is tempting to leave that box there. 

But if you can get the tools and find some safe people to go through it with, whether it's you personally, whether it's your kids. Sometimes too, as a parent, we'll see our kids go through something really hard. I mean, trauma or just something insanely difficult. And then we'll kind of look and go,I think they got through that. Let's just keep moving. Let's just keep moving without taking the time to talk it through and see what actually happened and see what the implications were. And then talking about it again a month later, six months later, because sometimes we can't talk about it freshly after it's happened. 

It's work. And we didn't know this stuff 20 years ago. So for older missionaries or older Christians listening, and sometimes it can be like, well, we didn't do that in my generation and we were just fine. Well, I would say maybe not just fine. You guys are awesome and so resilient, tough and incredible, but we all, I think, in each generation, and as time passes, we continue to learn more things. So it's kind of like the parents who didn't buckle their kids in seatbelts or they would nurse their babies in the front seat of cars and they say, well, it worked for me. It's great that it worked. Praise God. He got you through because he is amazing. And now you should wear a seatbelt and not nurse your child in the front seat. 

So what can we learn and how can we take this forward?

[00:40:56] Tanya Crossman: And it's not that it worked for you, it's how many people did it not work for and who didn't make it through. And, and I think that's the voice that we diminish when we say those things. Cause maybe you had a great experience and maybe you were part of the 70 percent who had a great experience, but there were 30 percent who had a terrible experience and they're not here at this table because they're not in this world. They're not in the church. They're not having this conversation. 

[00:41:25] Stephanie Gutierrez: And that's a great way of saying it. You're right. Because I think that there are people who do get through. I mean, and they maybe don't have some of those effects that other people do. They have maybe six, seven ACEs and they're just killing it and they're not experiencing what they are, but you are right. There is a huge sector of the population that is, and so let's not use how well we did to diminish other people's experiences or to keep them from growing and learning. So if you are one of those people who got through, awesome. And let's help the people who come after.

[00:41:59] Tanya Crossman: Yeah. And I think for me, that's why I love doing surveys with huge groups of people. I mean, I've also done lots of interviews where I'm talking to people about their specific stories. But when you get these huge groups of people, so, you know, our 2021 survey, we had 1,904 people in the data set. In the 2024 survey, we had 1, 643 people in the data set. When we have these huge groups, huge numbers of people, we can have a picture of what's happening overall, and say, yeah, for this percentage of people, things were great and that's wonderful. And for this percentage of people, it wasn't great. 

So for example, we asked when we had our set of statements about how they saw their childhood, we had a range. We had some stuff that was super positive. We had some stuff that was pretty, you know, neutral, and we had some stuff that was very negative. And there were way more people saying positive things than saying negative things. But there were still 10% of people saying this ruined my life. And there was still 20% plus of people saying my experience was mostly painful.

And even though the majority of people had a good experience, we don't want to ignore the fact that there were people who had a difficult experience and prevent them from getting care and prevent their stories from being heard, because both things are true at the same time. And I think for me, one of the best things that came out of this new survey, at least so far, as there's years worth of data analysis sitting here, was that about 95 percent of TCKs said, I can see both good and hard parts in my story.

And I think that's where we want to be. We want to be able to see both sides of that story. Nothing's black and white, there's always shades of grey, and being able to acknowledge and accept all of it together as our story, I think is exactly where we want to be.

[00:43:53] Stephanie Gutierrez: Yeah. That's an honest story. 

[00:43:56] Tanya Crossman: Yeah, an honest story, love that. 

[00:43:58] Stephanie Gutierrez: Okay. So for people who want to find out more, they've got your book, Misunderstood, which is amazing. You've mentioned the white papers, which are available on TCK training and on TCK training, you guys have such a wealth of resources. So people could just go on there and get lost.

[00:44:13] Tanya Crossman: Yeah, pretty much. We're constantly working to create new resources to meet whatever needs people are bringing to us.

At the moment, we've been focusing a lot on creating self guided online content with shorter videos, because that's what a lot of people are feeling the need for. To be able to just go through a couple of short videos with some handouts and work through material on their own at their own pace. That seems to fit what people are doing at the moment. So that's what we've been working on lately. 

So like I said, there's an unstacking course like that. We've got a repatriation course for young TCKs like that. We've got a transition course like that for families. So if there's something that you need that we don't have, let us know. 

[00:44:59] Stephanie Gutierrez: I love that. So we're just ending on a message of hope. There is so much that you can do. So you are not helpless. If this is your situation or your child's situation or family, you know, there's so much that you can do right now. Proactively, and there's a lot you can do on the other side of things too.

So Tanya, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all that today for just nerding out with me and seeing all of the factors and the numbers and then also then bringing in the examples and the stories to help it feel real. It's so fun to geek out, geeking out to help people.

I mean that's like the perfect way to do it. I love it.

[00:45:35] Tanya Crossman: And that's the reason to do it, right? We went out to start doing this research because we're like, there's information we want to have and nobody seems to have it. So let's go and create our own research projects.

[00:45:47] Stephanie Gutierrez: Yes. There are things that I read in your white papers specifically that I have not read anywhere else. And people can access those for free, like you said, right on tcktraining. So, I mean, if they're wondering where to even begin, that's a place to begin. I mean, and there's a lot of other free resources too. 

[00:46:02] Tanya Crossman: There's a free resource on the pieces as well. I'll make sure that you have a link to your listeners.

[00:46:07] Stephanie Gutierrez: Yes. Thank you. And some of those questions, like you said, that you can ask your kids. I mean, what great places to start. So thank you for all of the incredible work you do to serve TCKs everywhere. So from all of our missionaries, we just want to say how much we appreciate you, Tanya. 

[00:46:25] Tanya Crossman: We love being able to do this. This is why we get up in the morning.

[00:46:30] Stephanie Gutierrez: And I can tell. The funnest people to talk to are people who love what they do. So thank you again for joining us today. 

[00:46:37] Tanya Crossman: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.