Third Culture Kids, known as TCK’s, are a unique group because they grow up learning and adapting the many cultures they are exposed to. I think TCK’s can be influenced by environment, outside sources like social medias, and family. These influences can play a significant part in their early development and affect the way TCK’s mature. Although, Unorthodoxly being a military child turned me into a TCK because of the stationing in different states and countries.

I grew up in San Antonio, Texas with my grandmother and father. I was exposed most to the black and Tex-Mex culture in San Antonio.At the time, I was a young so I did not realize the cultural differences I had been exposed to. San Antonio is a very diverse place because it is so populated with Mexicans, blacks, and many more races. When I turned seven, my father got stationed in Hawaii and wanted me to come live with him. I moved with him and began acclimating myself to the Hawaiian culture: learning new things such as surfing and hula dancing. These cultural experiences I gained has affected the way I’ve communicated with others since then,  regardless of race, ethnicity, or religion. By learning a new culture as a young child, I started to develop the sense of how to detect cultural differences. I later developed a way of thinking that exposed me to new people and new experiences which helped me make tons of friends and gain more information about different cultures. Being a TCK helped me see the differences of people all over the world and become eager to learn a new culture. Although being a TCK has had many positive effects on my life, there are many negative effects it has on other TCKs everywhere.

According to Pollock and Van Raken so many TCKs experiences relocating to different places and go through a period of “denial of feelings or rejection”. Due to the constant shifts of moving from one culture to the next, similar to what Lauren Lyons refers to as “code-switching.” These periods of time can be extremely stressful and cause increased difficulty in trying to identify yourself to others. Lyons’ way of code-switching is about majority language and how we speak to certain people, either in one’s career or social life. TCKs are affected by the constant struggle of showing their language, interests, and personality in the culture that they believe to be their own since being multicultural gives them many cultures to personally identify with. Even though I learned and accepted the culture around me at a young age it took the time to get adjusted because I was not used to it. TCKs usually “deny those feelings and push them aside as ridiculous and immature” (69) feelings, resulting in a conflict of being an outsider and non-relatable to others. These actions create separation between conflicting cultures and result in situations where a TCK will reject trying to become someone’s friend in order to avoid displacement (or a feeling of displacement in the world). After middle school, my family relocated to Virginia Beach, Virginia. I felt disconnected from the world because everything I learned and used to all vanished because I was not accustomed to the East coast language, food, or people.

    The life of a TCK is truly affected by a wide variety of variables TCK’s put against themselves that result in the alienation from others and fear of rejection. Speaking from my own experiences, TCK’s are a group of very diverse and intelligent kids. The time it takes to learn and use different cultures develops TCK’s over time; shaping them into well-rounded young adults that tend to have some social difficulties due to a stunted development of social skills: a direct result of moving constantly. A positive effect that being a TCK has had on me is that it’s made me more adaptive by teaching me how to “code-switch” by changing my personality, language, and way of fitting in while communicating and learning from others. I think TCK’s should be able to learn new things very easily because of the constant transition of cultures and learning of new ones. These skills affect the way TCK’s operate in careers. For instance, I am bright and want to become a neurosurgeon, who would have grew up as a TCK. I think being a TCK is a big advantage because at a young age TCK’s start to learn about different cultures and integrating oneself with the different cultures within one. Learning how to speak different languages and accepting differences made me more open and social to relate to people.

The effects of multiculturalism on TCK’s personalities make them more open-minded than non-TCK’s  because they’re exposed to many cultures and have an “unprejudiced attitude towards outgroup members and towards different cultural norms and values.” The differences between one another also decrease their Emotional stability because TCK’s lack the “tendency to remain calm in stressful situations  versus the tendency to show strong emotional reactions under stressful situations.”   The conflict of being a TCK affects the way he or she makes friends. TCK’s can lack the communication skills because they are afraid of being rejected or categorized as different. I remember in Texas that I learned Spanish then moved to Hawaii where the language didn’t matter. Hawaiians’ had their own language which felt foreign to me. Throughout my first elementary school  years, I had disconnected myself and the children who spoke a different language because they were the majority and I was the minority.