Ruth E. Van Reken

 

Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds

Ruth Van Reken is a second generation Third Culture Kid* (TCK) and mother of three adult TCKs** (ATCKs). For over twenty-five years, she has provided consultations and workshops nationally and internationally with fellow ATCKs, parents, human resource people, educators, and other caregivers dealing with issues related to global family lifestyles.

Ruth is co-founder of the annual Families in Global Transition. In addition to her own story, Letters Never Sent, a chapter in both Strangers at Home (Aletheia Publications) and Writing Out of Limbo (Cambridge Scholars Publishing), and various other articles, Ruth co-authored Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds (Intercultural Press/Nicholas Brealey Publishers) with the late David C. Pollock

*children who grow up outside their parents culture(s) for a significant period of time during their first eighteen years of life.

**those who grew up as TCKs but are now adults themselves