Tag: TCKs

New from Summertime Publishing – I’m Moving! by Sara Wallén

Here’s a book for children who are moving!

Moving can be both scary and exciting for the whole family. It can bring up many feelings. Some of these are feelings children have never experienced before. The success of a move is closely connected to how well prepared the whole family is.

I’m Moving! is a hands-on guide to help children prepare for a move and navigate the emotional highs and lows that come with it. From the moment the move is announced to the time when everyone is settled in the new home, I´m Moving! is an effective tool for personal growth, helping the child unpack the move and tie up any loose ends prior to moving. I’m Moving! offers a unique approach to exploring and reflecting on the move. For parents, I’m Moving! is a springboard for conversations with the child, facilitating important dialogues concerning the move. I’m Moving! is appreciated by families globally and is translated into three languages.

About the Book

Raising Global Teens

Q:  How can we raise our teens to thrive in a busy, mobile and diverse world?

A: Read Raising Global Teens, due out 2020

Adolescence is the perfect storm. During puberty, kids experience a cascade of physical and psychological changes in addition to issues such as depression and alcohol use. With globalization, adolescents have more exposure to new cultures, communities, mobility, and transition both physically and virtually. Globalization has led to more teens who have moved countries or changed communities during their childhood, are children of immigrants, or are expats. It has also led to more children like my own, born to parents from different ethnic backgrounds. Kids raised in such a mobile diverse world have significant benefits in terms of exposure to language, empathy, adaptability. However, they also may struggle with issues related to belonging, resolving conflict, addressing grief and progressing evenly through adolescence. This may be particularly challenging when it occurs during a time when there are significant issues related to identity formation and self-esteem.

ABOUT RAISING GLOBAL TEENS

 This book will provide important tools and strategies for parents, caregivers, and educators to help modern-day teens build resilience and successfully navigate adolescence. Raising Global Teens combines real world questions, practical examples, expert interviews and simple explanations grounded in research and science by an experienced pediatrician, and is written by a teen health specialist who has worked with young people addressing just these issues in a global context. Raising Global Teens starts with important basic concepts regarding global adolescence, puberty, and the teen brain, progresses to more difficult subjects such as substance use, depression, social media, and sexuality, and ends on a positive note with how to best to communicate with cross cultural teens, equip them to handle stress and build self-esteem and resilience. This book will be an easy-to-read handbook for the busy, modern-day parent, caregiver, or educator of a global teen. Raising Global Teens will be published by Summertime Publishing in Spring 2020.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 Dr Anisha Abraham, MD, MPH is a board certified pediatrician and adolescent health specialist with 25 years of global experience.  Anisha treats and counsels young people with a variety of issues including social media use, drug use and stress.  As a recognized educator, Anisha provides training on adolescent health and wellness to faculty, teens and parents.

During her career, Anisha has served in a variety of roles including as Chief of Adolescent Medicine, a Lt Colonel in the US Army, and Medical Director of a school-based clinic. Anisha is currently based in Amsterdam, Netherlands and is on faculty at the University of Amsterdam and Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC.  On a personal note, Anisha knows what it’s like to face an ever-changing social landscape. She grew up in the United States as the daughter of South Asian immigrants and has lived with her husband and two kids in Asia, Europe and the US for the last ten years. She understands first-hand the challenges of moving from place to place with a family and experiencing different communities. She recognises that teens need tools and strategies to handle life’s challenges, be resilient and thrive in today’s fast paced environment.  As a physician, educator, and parent, Anisha helps teens to discover their strengths, focus on their wellbeing, and successfully navigate a changing world.

FIND OUT MORE

View Anisha’s Tedx Talk

Or subscribe at dranishaabraham.com

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A Lesson for TCKs – Everyone Leaves

The experience of living overseas as a child is very different to the experience of living overseas as an adult. The impact of childhood experiences last a lifetime. They are formative experiences – they teach us how the world works. We all internalise ‘lessons’ from our childhood experiences.

TCKs grow up between cultures, learning lessons from more than one cultural viewpoint. Often these messages contradict one another, and learning to navigate this conflict is part of what makes a TCK. The lessons they learn about how the world works, therefore, often come less from individual cultures and more from the fact that they juggle more than one cultural viewpoint. The experience of being “in between” greatly affects their understanding of the world.

As I interviewed hundreds of TCKs there were a lot of repeated themes, and even specific phrases, that became familiar. These were the lessons these TCKs had learned through their childhood experiences. In this post I’m introducing one of the most common lessons of a TCK childhood: Everyone leaves.

Read More | About Misunderstood