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The Emotional Infrastructure Children Need When Moving Abroad

MAJD ALKHAZNADAr
When I was eight, my family moved to a new country on a new continent. We arrived to find out the housing promised by the company wasn’t ready yet. We spent our first few weeks living in a hotel room.

Imagine being a parent in a situation like the one I experienced as a child. You’re getting your children ready for their first day of school in a hotel room. Half your belongings are packed into suitcases, the room is cramped, and the school bus they used to take each morning doesn’t exist here. So, while getting them dressed and fed, you’re also working out the journey to their new school. There are enrolment documents still being processed, visas to finalise, healthcare forms to complete, and a new city to navigate.

None of these things are small. When a family moves to another country, getting the practical pieces in place matters enormously.

The Practical Infrastructure

When moving a child abroad, we usually focus on the tangible logistics: school, housing, healthcare, visas, relocation, transport and safety. If a piece is missing, we tend to recognize it fairly quickly. If the housing isn’t ready, we know there is a problem. If a child doesn’t have a school place, we know it needs solving. Families and the organizations sending them abroad put enormous amounts of time, money and energy into making sure this infrastructure is in place, and rightly so. These are some of the structures that make an international childhood possible.

But imagine that everything goes right. The family moves into their new home. The visa comes through. The child starts at a good school, has access to healthcare, gets picked up by the school bus each morning and lives somewhere physically safe. Will this guarantee a safe and healthy childhood, leading to long-term success? 

The Emotional Infrastructure

There is another kind of infrastructure that is much easier to overlook because it is less visible: emotional infrastructure.

Does the child feel heard when they are struggling?
Do they have people they trust?
Are they forming friendships?
Do they feel a sense of belonging?
Is there someone standing beside them when life becomes difficult?

The practical structures around a child may help establish their new life, but these human structures help them feel secure within it.

There is growing evidence that these less visible parts of a childhood make a big difference long term.

Research into Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) identified seven factors that have a protective impact on children into adulthood. More recently, TCK Training looked specifically at these experiences across 1,643 Third Culture Kids from 92 different passport countries. Although international childhoods can take many different forms, a common thread emerged: the more PCEs TCKs had around them, the better their outcomes tended to be later in life.

In other words, while getting the practical infrastructure right is important, it is the emotional infrastructure that holds a child's life together. If the school, house and healthcare are the visible structure, these everyday human experiences are part of the cement that helps give that structure strength.

Positive Childhood Experiences

So, what does that emotional infrastructure actually look like?
Here are the 7 Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs):

1) Emotional support
Being able to talk openly to a family member or as a family about feelings and feel heard, accepted and supported.

2) Stand By Them in Difficult TimesBelieving that family stands by them during difficult times.

3) Safe & Protected
Feeling safe and protected by an adult in the home.

4) Supported by friends
Feeling supported by friends.

5) Belonging in High School
Feeling a sense of belonging in high school.

6) Tradition
Enjoying participating in community traditions.

7) Two Non-Parent Adults
Having two non-parent adults who took a genuine interest in them.

TCKs who had all 7 of these PCEs throughout their childhood abroad had better mental health outcomes, better physical health outcomes, held more favorable opinions of their childhood, and more. For example, TCKs with all 7 PCEs were:
  • 65% less likely to be diagnosed with an autoimmune disease 
  • 74% less likely to self harm
  • 91% less likely to abuse prescription medication

Practical support that makes a difference

None of the PCEs require removing every difficulty from a child's life. Instead, they are about making sure that  a child has people, relationships and communities around them to support them through whatever comes their way. And the difference can be striking: 98% of TCKs with 5 or more PCEs said that the TCK life had been a good experience overall, whether they had experienced high or low levels of adversity along the way.

Return to that eight-year-old getting ready for school. Imagine that the family is now out of the hotel and living in their new home. The paperwork is finished. The school place is secure. The bus arrives every morning. The practical infrastructure is finally in place.

But alongside it, the child has someone who listens and empathizes when they say they miss their old friends.
There is a teacher who notices when they are unusually quiet.
There are new friends who save them a seat at lunch.
Familiar family traditions have traveled with them, while new ones are beginning to form.
When things become difficult, they know who will stand beside them.

Moving a child abroad is not only about building the life around them; it is also about building the emotional infrastructure that allows them to feel safe, supported and connected within it. The practical infrastructure gets a child there. Emotional infrastructure helps make it a safe place that builds resilience for their future.

Want to learn more? Explore what protective factors can look like across different Third Culture Kid experiences, from missionary and military families to corporate, foreign service, and other globally mobile communities, through the links below.

Other relevant resources:

For Parents of:

 Missionary Kids
 Military Kids
 Diplomat Kids
 Corporate Kids
 International Educators & Humanitarian Workers Kids

For International Schools:

 International School Kids
 Christian International Kids
 Boarding School Kids
 Homeschooled Kids
 TCKs who Attend Local Schools 
Other relevant blog posts:
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 About the Author

Majd is an Adult TCK who grew up between London and Abu Dhabi. He is a postgraduate student at Goldsmiths, exploring cross-cultural experiences, identity and belonging, and how greater recognition of these experiences can enrich people’s lives.