Third Culture Kids (TCKs) have typically spent a significant part of their upbringing crossing cultures. Their experiences can make it challenging to find, form and sustain a sense of belonging to place and to people.

Author Megan Norton’s book “Belonging Beyond Borders” supports the journey of Adult TCKs in unpacking what it means to belong in their multiple communities: personal, professional, familial, cultural and spiritual.

Norton, an Adult TCK herself who grew up as the daughter of a U.S. diplomat and lived in South Africa, South Korea, Germany, Japan, Israel, Austria, Greece, Hungary and Poland, includes questions and self-reflection exercises that invite readers to get curious about how to belong, where to belong and why to belong.

TENDING ONE’S GARDEN

Using analogies from the garden, Norton creates imagery for readers to explore patterns in belonging and opportunities for belonging.

“As an Adult TCK, I personally share in a deeply spiritual and cultural way how I have navigated and grown in belonging to people and to place,” she says. “In a polarized world, my desire is that this book offers love and encouragement about how to see and bridge differences.”

Norton says she wrote her book because she has observed that young Adult TCKs can struggle with feelings of restlessness, rootlessness and not belonging.

“I want to provide some language and reflection exercises for TCKs to explore these feelings,” she says. “I hope that this book serves as an invitation for readers to interact with and respond to who they are as a person, as a local and global citizen, and as an individual who has had the TCK experience. I hope this book provides some additional language to describe the many ways we can belong to ourselves and to others and to the places we have called – or continue to call – home.”

Norton’s book is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

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