36 OCTOBER 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The author, with her father to her right and her children up front, takes a selfie in one of the main caves of Endless Caverns in the Shenandoah Valley. This stop was part of a summertime RV road trip in America. There are many interactive web-based resources that offer special perspective into different subcultures within America. that can be incorporated into a regular curriculum on the Founding Era.” The program sparked our children’s curiosity about their home nation and “where we come from,” and through the lens of Hamilton, for the first time, my children see themselves as a part of America’s origin story. In this lifestyle, where we spend most of our time overseas and have limited time back in the States, our family has tried to be strategic about how we use that time. For instance, in the last few years, we began dedicating a portion of our visits back to the United States to go to important historic and cultural landmarks and sites. Each winter and spring, we sit down with the kids and map out where and what they want to explore during the coming summer. Our travels have ranged from marathon visits to Smithsonian museums, a vacation by RV through some of the most beautiful national parks, and attending different types of music and cultural arts festivals. These “learning trips” are memorable for the kids because they participated in the visualization and planning of the trips, which in turn made them more invested in the experience. There are also many interactive web-based resources available to children and teens that offer an insider’s view and special perspective into different subcultures within America (see sidebar, “Online Resources”). For example, one of my children wants to be a veterinarian, so we spend a good amount of time on the National Geographic (NatGeo) Kids website, watching videos, playing games, and completing other engaging activities. There is a NatGeo channel on one of the streaming services we subscribe to, which means that many of our weekly family movie nights have been dedicated to watching documentaries that explore American geography, topography, Indigenous cultures, music, art, food, animals, and wildlife, and so much more. Our NatGeo movie nights always lead to interesting conversations, and my children always have a ton of questions about what they’ve seen. Pen Pals and Online Play Dates While I am not advocating spending exorbitant amounts of time online with your kids or allowing them to be online all the time, I found these resources extremely useful in helping my kids form a national and cultural identity. However, the internet is no substitute for the real thing, which in this case is the experience of growing up immersed in one’s own culture or in a place where there are direct cultural and familial ties. That said, as parents of TCKs, we work diligently and consciously to ensure our children maintain relationships with friends and family back in the States. We do this by encouraging our children to become pen pals with the children of friends from college, scheduling regular online play dates with friends and cousins back home, and initiating frequent conversations with grandparents, aunts and uncles, and former teammates and friends they have made when we were at home. These ties help the children feel connected to the United States and foster a sense of belonging and ownership. It also helps reduce the barriers to reentry whenever we go back home. We hope that through these efforts—and it is an effort—our children will embrace their TCK status, and that they will thrive as global citizens. However, we are certain they will also know who they are, where they come from, and why that is important. The best part is, they will always be able to include the United States among the places they call home. n LIA MILLER
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