We are an Intercultural Family
Who you are
You and your family decided to move abroad thanks to a new job opportunity. Everybody around you is admiring you for this opportunity to explore a new country.
However, you know it is not that simple. Your kids need to leave their school, activities and friends. Your spouse might need to quit his/her job and from one day to another you lose your references and support system.
Maybe, this is not even your first move, you have already come from a foreign country, where after a few years you were starting to adapt.
You and your family are in a whole new setting, faced with cultural and linguistic challenges and need to make it work for everybody.
What your issues tend to be
Some of the most common challenges that you are experiencing are:
- Loss of personal and family support
- Kids’ loss of self-confidence due to the difficulty to adapt to a new school system
- Difficulty to make new friends
- Linguistic barriers
- The culture shock was bigger than you expected
- Feelings of isolation
- Financial stress because you lost one income
- Marital and family arguments because one or more members of the family are not happy with the moving decision
- Sense of abandonment from one partner because the other works long hours
What you need most right now
You and your family need to reinvent your lives!
Families from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds need support to adjust successfully to a different culture and environment. Acquiring skills and tools to grow as multicultural beings will allow you to cope more effectively within different cultural settings, work places, and school systems.
With the support of psychological methodologies that are based on a multidisciplinary study, and my own personal understanding family migration experience, I can help you to make this transition successful.
My aim is to promote integration, based on the dialogue between different cultures in an atmosphere of mutual respect and the development of common ground.
We get caught up in identifying ourselves with labels and we forget to connect to our deep essence, which exists beyond our skin, nationality, religion or societal expectations.
Read about my 30 years international experience, family relocation, my work teaching and counseling at International Schools.
My husband, 3 kids, and I had the opportunity to live and work in Asia, Australia, France, Italy and the United States.
With a degree in psychology, I worked at international schools in Singapore, France, Australia and the United States.
The International school in Singapore was particular because it had a staff and a student population from 65 different countries. It was at this time that I became familiar with David Pollock’s “Third Culture Kids,” a research providing insight on expatriate communities.
“Third Culture families” or “Nomad families” can find more harmony, pleasure and balance if an expert helps them during cultural transitions, because these families, for the most part, need to reinvent their entire lives.
I have first-hand experience, and knowledge on this matter as a result of living on four continents, traveling the world for thirty years with my family. During my globetrotting, I have witnessed many cases of distress, discouragement and suffering in individuals who left their professions and families in their own country.
Children and teens also need a strong support system in order to make successful transitions and adjust to new cultures. I can say with certainty that I am an expert in guiding families and students redesign their lives in new countries, transforming their challenges into new opportunities.
