Never in my wildest dreams as a child would I have imagined the life I have lived. The adventures, experiences, and opportunities, the love I have given and received, and the success I have enjoyed have all far exceeded my expectations. But there are also hopes and dreams that didn’t materialize that I grieve. Nobody’s […]

My daughter is almost 15 now, so I am still in the beginning stages of parenting a teenager. I am finding it very rewarding and frustrating all at the same time. Since this is where my energies are going at the moment, I thought I would share today some of what I have learned so

Being a parent anywhere is not easy. Being a parent overseas brings with it unique challenges as well as opportunities. For most children raised overseas, the benefits seem to outweigh the drawbacks. Compared to their peers back home, they seem better able to deal with cultural and racial differences. They develop a broader world view,

Internationally mobile parents have additional parenting complexities that they must manage, including adjusting themselves to the new culture they enter, easing their children’s cross-cultural adjustments, nurturing cultural identity and roots for their children, and operating in new roles and under different rules than their parents did. The most successful international parents are often those who

Americans value individualism. In fact, we are famous for the “American Dream,” which is a dream of individual success that comes true for many ‘self-made’ people.  We also know that  belonging to a group can make fun more enjoyable and success more likely. We do not mind group relationships. What often bothers us is group

Human rights are the standard of most Western justice systems. Whatever protects human rights is just; whatever goes against human rights is unjust. In most Western countries all people regardless of their status have many personal rights guaranteed by the government. These often include such things as the right to speak one’s mind in public

Cultural values in some Western countries focus on making money and holding onto it. We can be surprised that people in other countries are uninterested in our latest techniques for doing this. It can be easy to conclude that the local people are lazy or stupid, and that it is impossible to ‘help’ them.  We

As long as you live in your home country, you can get along very well without being conscious of your own culture.You automatically do things in a certain way, and it just works. When you go into another cultural setting, it doesn’t work so well. You suddenly discover that you have unconsciously brought a lot

Parents face the task of not only making their own adjustment to a new country successful, but also easing their children’s adaptation to the new school and environment. The impact of the parents’ own adjustment process on the children can be tremendous. Making sure we take care of ourselves in our own adjustment is crucial,

Talking with several Mothers this month, they mentioned that they did not have a very good Mother’s Day. When I asked why not, I typically got various stories related to feeling as though their husband and children did not make a big enough fuss over them or they did not feel truly APPRECIATED.  In complete

I think most Moms succumb to Mom GUILT from time to time, and that is normal. I think it only becomes a problem when we use it as a weapon against ourselves. GUILT is an emotion that occurs when a person believes, accurately or not, that they have compromised moral standards and bear responsibility for

For Mother’s Day, I would like to celebrate the expat Moms. Wouldn’t it be great if all the Moms out there made a pledge to make time for themselves this year! We tend to put everybody and everything ahead of ourselves, but the reality is that when we show up as the best version of