2024 Features, Part 4

Our work and research (and staff!) were featured on a wide variety of blogs and podcasts over the past year! This is the final installment of our four-part series in which we have been sharing these TCK Training features from throughout 2024. 

One segment that featured in 2024 was the missionary community. We appreciate the hunger this community has to learn and grow in knowledge about and care for TCKs, Adult TCKs, their parents and caregivers. 

Parents are key figures to create safe spaces and healthy support for their kids. Elizabeth Vahey Smith shares with Kyle and Heather Farran about how missionary parents can prioritize their kids’ needs in the midst of their ministry work and develop a sense of safety and belonging for their kids to build resiliency while on the field. 

Click here to listen to the episode

MKs grow up with a different culture than American kids within the US, and this can be a cross-cultural shock for ATCKs returning to the US. In this piece Jessi Bullis shares her wrestlings, both as an American ATCK and as a Christian within the American church, along with helpful reflective questions.

Click here to read the full article

Children have big emotions, and in order to help them sort out their emotions, parents also need to know how to sort through their own emotions. Elizabeth Vahey Smith shares the value of processing from both biblical and psychological perspectives and the freedom adults can find in their own processing as they parent, do ministry, live in community, and more. 

Click here to listen to the episode

Tanya Crossman talks with Australian researcher Valerie Ling about their respective research into the experiences of missionary kids, with a focus on Australian MKs. Their conversations ranges through identity issues, resource limitations, ACEs, PCEs, and other hope-filled ways to support MKs.  

Click here to listen to the episode

In the first installment of this two-part series, Tanya Crossman reflects on recent data from TCK Training's third White Paper, pulling statistics specific to trauma experienced by missionary kids. She discusses how this can impact MKs - and what to do about it.

Click here to read the first full article

In the second and final article of this two-part series, Tanya Crossman gives hope when it comes to responding to trauma on the mission field. There are both preventive factors (to limit exposure) and reactive factors (responding well) which can be put into place by parents, mission organizations, and communities to help families on the field.

Click here to read the second article


More of TCK Training's 2024 Features:
Part 1: Transition
Part 2: Emotional Health
Part 3: Adult Third Culture Kids
Part 4: Missionary Community
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