The foreign/native identifiers are definitely felt. When I came back to the US (my passport country) and began attending school, I felt like a foreigner, but everyone related to me as a native...quite confusing.
I've been "home" for longer than I was away and have learned to hide my lack of familiarity with cultural references/icons because it just confuses others too much.

This is interesting, and has some good points, but is also long and I'm not quite sure, after finishing, what was really being expressed. But thanks for sharing. Will be added to the resources of "Worlders - A Tribe of Wanderers" as well. Thank you.

I'm the son of Missionaries and later moved around the world on business with my parents. Based off the shallow questions I don't think they should have omitted military or missionaries. Those questions probably would have applied to anyone who has ever moved a lot, not just overseas. It's also pointless to ask someone if they're depressed without ... See Moreasking why. This survey failed to do that and definitely pressed you towards the negative.

What is the point of a survey if you're not actually looking for truth? There's a lot of successful and happy TCKs out there too! If you publish an article saying that TCKs are more likely to be dissatisfied with life because all you are asking is "are you somewhat satisfied or are you not really satisfied", you're just going to shine a bad light on the parents who take their kids overseas. It's made me a stronger person in a lot of ways and weaker in others, but I wouldn't trade it for anything...

These questions did not strike me a particularly negative. Rather, they seemed quite standard to this sort of research.

In regards to excluding missionary and military kids, I'm guessing this may have been done due to their being believed to have a more stable support network... or possibly due to the assumption that many are raised with stronger 'roots' in the form of politics or religion (generally speaking).

Other groups unspecified would include the children of those running the international schools circuit- that's a fairly large chunk of people. And I have a number of friends who fit into none of these tidy group classifications. Just because it's not so easily defined, doesn't mean the survey only accounts for diplomat/business brats.... See More

Finally, it's good to see so many people surprised at the possibility of a higher rate of depression in the internationally mobile- I wonder what went differently in these circles from those I've known. Would be good to learn from! Personally, I've long speculated that my fellow TCKs do seem to have a higher incidence of depression, particularly those yet unmarried and/or who first returned to their country of nationality in their later teen years. On the surface we've all been very good at adapting and appearing to fit in, but belonging everywhere and nowhere at once can get trying in time... particularly if there aren't any who 'get it' in whom you can confide the various challenges many of us (TCK and not) face.

Love Heidi's comment .. yes God doesn't live in one country!!! The ability to see out of others eyes. The knowing that there is more than "one way" of doing anything. The ability to see humans as humans not "others".
Can understand English language learners speaking English without the subtitles and be patient with them because we have been there ourselves. Yes, I'm proud to be a TCK.

Amen to Heidi's and Melissa's comment. Can't add anything better to theirs.