Missionary Kids and the TCK Experience

The MK Experience

Missionary Kids are one of the most studied and most supported TCK populations, partly because the organisations that send missionary families abroad have had a long time to learn from the outcomes. Research on MKs, including the significant work done by TCK Training, has produced important findings about risk factors, protective factors, and the specific challenges that come with growing up in a faith-based internationally mobile family.

One consistent finding is that the integration between the family’s mission and the child’s own sense of purpose matters significantly for long-term wellbeing. Children who understand why the family is where it is, and who have some sense of participating in that purpose, do better than children for whom the reason for the moves feels abstract or invisible.

• How was the purpose of the family’s international life communicated to you as a child?
• What did the faith community at each posting give you, and what did it complicate?
• Were there aspects of your MK experience that you felt you could not talk about honestly within the missionary community itself?
• What do you wish the sending organisation had known about what children in those situations actually need?