Alex

Mr. O’Connell

Writing E04

4 October 2019

Growing Up Overseas Is Good

Growing up overseas is overall beneficial for children. The mix of culture and

language is essential to a kid that grows up knowing that we are all humans and differences

are similarities. There are so many ways that children could benefit from being surrounded by

new cultures, languages, and food. These things cause open-mindedness, courage and

adaptability. These three things are crucial to children’s growth and will help them

throughout their life.

Children who grew up overseas are open-minded as adults because when they were

kids, they met a wide range of people. When they saw and interacted with many different

cultures, they learned about the differences in the world. They learned the uniqueness of the

countries they lived in. They became adults that are knowledgeable about the world. This

helps international diplomacy; after all, 63% of people that lived overseas wanted to study an

international related field. They also had more things to add to their resumé. One thing that

they might have added, if the country has a different language, is that they are bilingual.

For some children, the native language is the best part about moving to different

countries. When children grow up bilingual, they get many benefits. They could gain skills;

such as memory, multitasking, concentration, and listening. These are all skills that are good

to have in life. There are also more benefits to being bilingual. A study found with infants

that the ones exposed to two languages performed better in brain tests than their friends that
were exposed to one language. Although learning a new language is frustrating, it would later

give kids access to talk to a wider group of people. Language is not the only thing new in a

country, there are also new treasures and customs.

Everyone’s treasure is special to them. Some people feel that treasure is comfort while

others feel treasure is in new places. For most kids that grow up away from their home

country, the best treasures are the experiences and feelings that are unique to them. These

include the experiences of traveling to places that are almost completely different than what

they are used to. For some, China, America, Germany, Peru or Kenya are the opposite of

what they are used to. It is hard for an American to live in China or vice versa because the

cultures are different. These memories are important for growing kids. Andre Gide, a French

author, said: “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the

shore.” Growing up in different cultures teaches that learning the new is letting go of the

known. It might not be easy, but the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

It seems that growing up different is good for later life, but while the kids are away

from home, it is sometimes hard. One of the challenges is that they are always saying

goodbye to friends and family. In international schools, friends are constantly moving away.

This is hard, but it teaches kids that goodbyes are always followed by hellos. Another

challenge is getting used to a type of new food. For many people, food is a comfort. When

kids move to places that do not have their native food or ingredients, they might not feel like

it is home yet since they probably will not like the food that everyone else around them likes.

However, with online stores that deliver, people can ship food to the country they live in.

This brings comfort, and they would recall the memories of home while eating familiar food.

A third challenge is communication with family and friends back home. In this century, we

have Skype and WhatsApp to stay connected. However, for some, there is a time difference.

There are places in the world where the kids could have a 12-hour time difference from their
home country and family. This could cause problems with Skype and calls as both people are

at different places in the world, so when one side calls in the day, they wake up the other in

the night. This could be solved if they plan a schedule, so one would call at 8:00 am and the

other would answer at 8:00 pm. This might not be very hard to do, but it does require some

time. The greatest challenge of all, when kids grow up overseas, they could start to forget

their own culture. This would be bad when they go back, and people think that they are

different because they do not know the country’s history and culture. One way of preventing

this is when they are away from their home country, they can take online classes to catch up

on the history that their friends at home are learning. For example, if an American is

overseas, they can take classes at ushistoryabroad.com. This site gives lessons on American

history, so they will not be that far behind when they return to America and all their friends

know everything. So even though there are challenges to growing up overseas, in this day and

age kids have access to the internet to help with feeling different and out of place.

One advantage of growing up overseas is learning about different cultures. Every

culture has their own difference; some might say gifts are unnecessary while others say gifts

are the most important tradition. Kids that grew up overseas can learn how to treat other

kinds of people and when interacting with them, they would not accidentally offend them by

doing something against their culture. Kids also learn about tolerance of other cultures. When

kids grow up and make friends with people of different cultures, they learn that it’s okay to

be different and have different customs and beliefs. Not only will these help the relationship

between people from different cultures, but it also helps international diplomacy.

It is hard to grow up overseas, but it provides many advantages. Expat kids would

have trouble relating to people that never moved, but they will be better at adapting, more

open to different ideas, have more cultural empathy and have a wider world view. This is
necessary in the modern world where everything depends on the between everyone. This

causes expat kids to be important not only to the people around them, but the whole world.
 Work Cited

Bhattacharjee, Yudhijit. “Why Bilinguals Are Smarter.” The New York Times, 17 Mar. 2012,
www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html.
Accessed September 28, 2019
Cobb, Amanda. “Growing up Overseas.” Escape Artist, 26 Dec. 2017,
www.escapeartist.com/blog/growing-up-overseas/. Accessed September 26, 2019
West, Blandine. “The 10 Biggest Struggles for a Third Culture Kid.” The Telegraph,
Telegraph Media Group, 23 Feb. 2016, www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/education-and-
family/the-10-biggest-struggles-for-a-third-culture-kid/. Accessed September 28, 2019