[This article also exists in audio form. You can listen to it on The Pondering Purple Podcast available on most platforms or by clicking HERE.]
After a brief hiatus filled by guest posts, I’m back in the saddle. The time I took off to write my upcoming book yielded 170 pages that will hopefully see the light of day in a couple of months. I cannot wait to tell you more about it! Keep checking my blog and my social media (linked below) to stay informed about the book’s release date.
In celebration of the completion of the manuscript, I’m sharing a portion of one of the fifteen chapters with you today. Consider it a preview of sorts.
If you’ve been a reader for a while, you may remember the article on Adverse Childhood Experiences or ACES. In that piece, we explored new research by TCK training that measured the amount of toxic stress MKs and TCKs experience, and how it matches up with the stress of young people in other communities.
The research, originally pioneered by the Centers for Disease Control and Kaiser Permanente, found that people who accumulate four or more ACES during their youth are more likely to experience negative future outcomes like addiction, unexplained medical issues, relational challenges, mental illness, and something best described as “failure to thrive”
TCK Trainings findings indicate that 17% of MKs and 24% of non-mission TCKs are in the high risk group for those life diminishing outcomes.
Of course, that also means that a good number of MKs and TCKs are not in that group, but the percentage of those who are still left me feeling sad and fearful for these people I love. It also motivated me to begin an earnest campaign to educate parents in the Third Culture and Missionary Community not only about prevention, but about trauma, mental health, and the red flags that might indicate that special care is needed.
My own exploration of the topics pointed me to Positive Childhood Experiences (or PCEs) as one of the greatest tools in the parenting arsenal not only for mitigating the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences, but for blunting their long-term consequences.
So what exactly are PCEs (Positive Childhood Experiences) and how do they relate to the ACEs we’ve already explored? First, a bit of a reminder about the realities of growing up as TCKs:
In Misunderstood, Tanya Crossman reports that 80% of Adult Third Culture Kids were glad to be TCKs, 90% were thankful, and 98% said they would not take back their TCK upbringing if they could.
These statistics indicate that for all the hardships we might experience during our formative years, the blessings of growing up as a TCK are just as undeniable.
I believe that MKs whose Positive Childhood Experiences are powerful enough to retain their brightness despite the darkness of any Adverse Childhood Experiences are able to acknowledge the Hard without losing sight of the Wonderful.
This is where the science related to PCEs becomes essential understanding. It can impact the way Global Nomads live through their early years and lessen the imprint of ACEs on their adult years.
In my work with families, I’ve found that categorizing Positive Childhood Experiences as either Bright-Impact PCEs or Profound-Impact PCEs can help MKs to more easily identify the positive events and environments that have supported their wellness. It also helps parents to craft a plan that blesses their children with both.
Bright-Impact PCEs are significant and important. They’re more short-lived experiences that temporarily bring joy and comfort to children. Just as an accumulation of small-T trauma can have a powerful negative influence on young minds and spirits, an accumulation of Bright-Impact PCEs can have a powerful beneficial influence on the minds and spirits of MKs.
For Global Nomads, those Bright-Impact PCEs will vary with the details that make our stories unique—with each home country, each family dynamic, each glowing memory, each story of personal suffering, overcoming, and thriving. We might joyfully remember:
- The sound of monsoon rains on our home’s tin roof
- Eating a meal cooked over smoldering manure
- Providing food and shelter for thousands of refugees
- The baptism of dozens of new believers in a muddy river
- Bringing sustainable farming to war-ravaged places
- Spending entire days with our friends on public transit in bustling, safe cities
- Seeing a baby who had hours to live being nursed back to life in a tent hospital
- Witnessing nationals graduate with degrees in theology, music, or ancient languages, to take the reins of ministries in their own countries
- Watching a remote village receive its first Bible
- Digging life-saving wells where water is scarce
- Watching truth transform lives in places where lies are proclaimed and embraced
- Cutting the ribbon on a new school building
- Creating lodging and paving roads and extending bridges in Jesus’ name across gaping divides between countries, people, and faiths
- Riding motocross bikes over a sea of sand dunes
- Learning to cook a traditional meal from a best friend’s abuela
- Watching the northern lights reflect on a nearly-still ocean
While Bright-Impact Positive Childhood Experiences might be compared to the chimes and piccolos in a TCK’s symphony, Profound-Impact PCEs are more like the timpani and contrabass. They are foundational family practices and external systems that will influence Global Nomads on a deeper level, fostering a sense of safety and a capacity for hope that are indispensable for resilience and emotional stability.
Research into this phenomenon has shown that survivors of trauma who can identify 6 to 7 Positive Childhood Experiences (the Profound-Impact variety) in their formative years will be 72% less likely to experience depression or mental health challenges later in life.
This data positions PCEs as essential counterweights to the detrimental impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences. They can actually protect against some of the negative future outcomes ACEs have wrought in the lives of TCKs.
There are seven Profound-Impact PCEs parents can cultivate—both in the family culture and in the broader environment—to multiply joy-giving influences in their children’s lives. The more of these positive experiences TCKs are offered, the better their chances will be of avoiding trauma-triggered mental health challenges in the future. (The statements below assume the presence of two parents in the child’s life, but just one parent can foster them too.)
- Being able to talk with their parents about their feelings—having Mom and Dad validate emotions, ask follow-up questions, and offer comfort
- Experiencing the support of parents during difficult times—Mom and Dad being physically present, engaged in the situation, and ready to go to bat for their children as needed
- Enjoying family traditions in which they regularly participate—finding predictability and stability in celebrating milestones and special occasions together
- Feeling a sense of belonging in a high school setting—having a place among their peers, being involved in extracurricular activities, and feeling socially connected in this critical phase of development—this obviously would have to be adapted for home-schooling children
- Being supported by friends—finding inclusion and self-esteem-boosting relationships with peers who aren’t related to them
- Being genuinely cared for by at least two adults (coaches, mentors, teachers, or friends of the family)—their value and worthiness needs to be validated by adults who invest time and love in them
- Feeling safe and protected by a parent in the home—knowing that at least one parent is there to shield them, meet their needs, and empower them, while striving to maintain emotional security inside the home
Some of these Profound-Impact PCEs can be cultivated by parents wherever the family serves—with open communication, intentional action, right priorities, and child-focused wisdom.
But life doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The temperaments of individual children, past trauma they’re carrying, family dynamics, and the social and geographical environment they’re living in will also play a role in the availability of Positive Childhood Experiences.
In some cases, making sure a son or daughter receives sufficient PCEs will require parents to increase their intentionality in areas that need attention.
In others, it may force them to make heart-wrenching sacrifices for the best of reasons—the kind of changes that protect the current and future wellness of Global Nomads at the cost of changing locations or communities, and sometimes even leaving the ministry.
Given the gentle care and focus Jesus showed to children—as well as his admonishments to love them well—making hard and heartful decisions for the sake of a suffering child may be the most Christlike of PCEs those who love MKs can offer them.
There’s a French expression I’ve mentioned before that states, “J’sais pas sur quel pied dancer.” I don’t know what foot to dance on. This seems to be a fairly common phenomenon among MKs who have one foot on Planet Hard and one foot on Planet Wonderful. We feel the tension between all we enjoy and all we’ve endured, and often don’t know which foot to dance on.
This goes beyond having a conniption trying to decide who to cheer for during the Olympics and World Cup soccer. We’ve been gifted so much good by growing up as TCKs. What we’ve accomplished and seen, what we’ve learned and assimilated. All priceless.
We wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Some MKs have also been confronted with realities beyond our capacity to handle. We’ve witnessed atrocities or shouldered excessive stress or survived dangerous events or lived with unhealthy alienation and uncertainty.
Yet we still wouldn’t trade the good parts for the world.
I personally experienced family dysfunction, sexual abuse, severe depression, suicidal ideation, and an anxiety disorder during my growing-up years.
Yet I too wouldn’t trade the rest of it for the world.
Grief and joy.
Floundering and flourishing.
ACEs and PCEs.
They exist in tandem in the lives of so many TCKs.
Permission to express struggles, relationships capable of receiving the truth, resources to help process with a knowledgeable guide, and faith in a God who understands and cares—all of those can shine stability, true resilience, and a healthy outlook on self and on God into the complicated existence of Purple Children who grow up cross-culturally in the often-challenging world of ministry.
Please join the conversation!
- Contribute your thoughts in the comments section below
- Use the social media links to Like and Share this article
- Many of these articles are now available in podcast form. Simply search for “Pondering Purple” on your usual pod platforms, or click this link to be taken to its host page.
- To subscribe to this blog, email michelesblog@gmail.com and write “subscribe” in the subject line
- Pick up Of Stillness and Storm (my novel about a missionary calling gone awry) on Amazon
- My latest release—Flecks of Gold—is available now too! Follow the link to learn more about this coffee-table book that explores God’s presence in our suffering.