Dear EKC: Why Is It Important That You're TCK-Sensitive?

Dear EKC, 

My wife and I are in the process of looking for therapy for our ten year old. We just settled down in the Netherlands, our latest move. In his lifetime, we’ve lived in four countries so far: the U.S, Japan, Kuwait, and now here. Our son just started school. His teacher called last week with a concern about his attention and “social behavior.” We went in to talk to her but it didn’t clear anything up.

Some of the feedback she gave didn’t sit right with me. She says he might be neurodivergent because he doesn’t make eye contact or speak up in class. He also seems like he prefers adults to the other kids and speaks “too freely” with them. So—he doesn’t make eye contact or talk in class but somehow also talks too much with adults? 

They sent him for an assessment. It was really expensive (!) and it felt like an English test with the number of questions and how detailed my son was apparently expected to be in his answers. English is his “school language” but we speak Spanish at home. He seemed nervous and not himself and stumbled over things he usually has no problem with. Afterwards, he told me, “I knew the answer in Spanish but not in English,” which makes sense but they didn’t address it at all in the testing. 

I’m worried about him. I know this isn’t a “normal childhood” but we’ve tried to keep things at home pretty consistent, even as we move countries. This is the first time a teacher’s told us she thinks he needs support and obviously we want to give it to him. I’m just worried that he’ll be stuck with a label for the rest of his life if he can’t find the right English words again. 

He’s also been a little moodier than usual since our last move. The assessor mentioned anxiety and maybe that’s true. But cut a kid a break, you know? He just left his best friend and his last home behind. We were there for 3 years so this is a big change. 

I want to find support for him that understands where he’s coming from and why his life’s different from the other kids. I don’t want someone who just shoves him in a box. Does that even exist? Is there therapy for kids like him, or should I just go with the mainstream guy the school recommended? 

–Trying to Get it Right

Dear Trying, 

Your question’s a really good one and it’s exactly why we’re here: there IS therapy specifically for kids like yours and that’s what we do. Your son’s what we’d call a “third culture kid,” a TCK for short. Everything you wrote about is what we see every day. You’ve come to the right place. 

It sounds like everyone’s coming from a place of concern for your son; everyone’s on the right side here. But a lot of assessments just don’t consider cultural context. They’re not made for it. They’re standardized and made for kids who speak one language (or, at least, one main language) and have grown up in the same culture their whole lives. 

The things your son’s teacher’s bringing up, like eye contact, how and when kids speak to adults, and how much they advocate for themselves differ across cultures. In one place, like the U.S., direct eye contact shows confidence. In Japan, it can be seen as disrespectful. In some cultures, children are praised for speaking up. In others, they’re expected to wait to be invited into the conversation. 

If we don’t understand what behaviors are encouraged in a child’s previous cultures, it’s easy to interpret something as a “symptom” when it might just be learned behavior. TCKs who have lived across countries often hold multiple, sometimes conflicting cultural expectations. They might even switch behaviors depending on who they’re with at any given moment. If we forget that they’re TCKs, it can be very confusing to interpret why they’re acting a certain way. 

It also makes sense that you and your son didn’t feel like the language-based assessment was a good fit. With TCKs, those need to be interpreted very carefully. A child might fully understand a concept, but have trouble expressing it in English because they’re still developing proficiency alongside other languages. 

The tools were standardized and designed to predict behaviors of kids from English-speaking cultures. Some of the WISC subtests might even feel like vocab quizzes to parents (and cause frustration) because abstract reasoning skills are tested by asking about commonalities between concepts. Your son would need to know what the words mean to succeed. This is an obvious hurdle with non-native speakers. This doesn’t mean these tests aren’t useful, but they definitely have to be used thoughtfully. 

Therapy for TCKs also has to consider identity. TCKs often carry several cultural pieces of who they are. Sometimes, those pieces fit together comfortably and sometimes they don’t. Making sense of “who am I?” is a major theme. For many TCKs, therapy’s the first space where they’re invited to think about that. Having those different parts recognized and validated can be a huge relief. 

You also mentioned mood changes after your last move. For TCKs, relocation grief and adjustment struggles often show up as symptoms that look like anxiety or depression. If we’re not tuned into the context of global mobility, we might focus on only treating anxiety or low mood without looking at the grief underneath. Labeling behaviors as anxiety or depression can miss what your son’s actually trying to process. 

TCK-sensitive therapy holds the whole story in mind: the moves, the languages, the cultural rules, and the losses. This is key in figuring out how to help. Children need space to feel their feelings and work through emotions in a safe space. For TCKs, this means a space where their international life is understood, not treated as a side note. 

You’re absolutely right to want an assessment that sees your whole child. In fact, this is something we’ve been thinking about extensively at EKC. We recently added assessment services to our offerings. The team that assesses your son should be looking through the right globally mobile lens, carefully interpreting language-based results and considering how factors like culture and relocation history show up in the process. We’re more than happy to work with you or answer any questions as you consider taking this step. Just follow this link for more information: https://www.expatkidsclub.com/assessments. 

Bottom line: your son doesn’t need to fit into a single-country mold to get the support he needs. The goal isn’t just to identify challenges, but to understand him in context—and you’re on the right track. 

Warmly, 

Karolina Dąbrowska

Ad Hoc EKC Therapist