The Grief Tower: A Practical Guide to Processing Grief with Third Culture Kids

by Lauren Wells

Children who grow up outside of their parent’s passport country, Third Culture Kids (TCKs), experience a significant number of losses, grief-inducing experiences, and traumas during their developmental years. These events stack up like blocks on a tower throughout the life of the TCK, creating what Lauren Wells has coined the Grief Tower. If it continues to stack without these experiences being processed, a TCK's Grief Tower is likely to crash in their early adulthood. But is this avoidable? Can parents and caregivers provide care that prevents the tower from stacking too high in the first place? The answer is yes, and this practical resource is full of tools for helping the TCKs we love to process their grief.

Genres: Nonfiction, Christian, Counselling, Psychology, Self Help

100 pages, Paperback

Published January 22, 2021

Reviews

[Kayti · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short but vital read for anyone with TCKs in their life. I’ll definitely be referencing this one, and much of Lauren Well’s resources, again and again.

[Janessa Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is essentially a quick packaging of longer psychological/counseling books, and touches on the main points you'd find in some of those. (If that's your cup of tea, don't expect something new here.) What's unique is that it's condensed into very practical steps to take with the TCKs in your life. This book is very short, packs a big punch, and could be used as a literal open and go kind of guide in a family setting. This is THE book for an overwhelmed TCK parent.

I'm so happy someone is creating specific resources for the many many third culture kids around the world (ministry, military, immigrant, etc)! The basic counseling tools here could also apply beyond cross-cultural moves for families who have gone through a big move or experienced trauma.

I'm curious about her guide for adult TCKs, as I am one myself. And her longer book versus this guide. Definitely recommend for anyone in an expat community/family.

[Jana Kelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick read with some practical guidance

While TCKs who have deep grief may need professional guidance, this book gives some really useful practical ways a family can process overseas life together. I would recommend this book.

[Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick read, easy to digest as a parent with plenty of practical steps we can use to care for our TCK

[Courtney Carder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very practical advice for loving and caring for TCKs. Even as someone who is not a TCK, it was helpful to put words to things that I, myself, have had trouble processing. I recommend!

[Kayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short, accessible, practical.

[Jenel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has practical tips and some exercises that I will try with my kids and other TCKs in our lives. However, this could have just have been a chapter in her book, Raising Healthy TCK’s, since she references her first book in every chapter of this one— and it took less than 2 hours to read total. Felt more like an extensive pamphlet.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a therapist, I can see why this is a recommended resource for parents of third culture kids. It is a fast read that provides a great metaphor to visualize grief within the expatriate experience and gives actionable advice. (I also say that having expatriate experience.) However, it lacks any real depth and the references to trauma are shallow; the author refers to her previous work many times, which felt like she was using this book to sell you her other one. There are also therapeutic techniques that are presented which, if not done well, could easily do harm. There are also assumptions from the Western lens and fails to account for any sort of cultural competency or intersectionality.

Though this book offers insight, it felt like reading a blog post and left me with more questions about truly understanding the third culture kid population and a strong American perspective that fails to account for learning to live in different cultures.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is short and practical, but even with the advice on how to help your third culture kids process all the griefs and losses and little traumas of their life, I still feel like I would almost need to see this done, or have someone do it with me, before I’d remember it well enough to do it with my kids without checking notes/referring to the book in an awkward way, ha. I appreciated the whole concept of unstacking the tower, though, and the idea that processing things on a regular basis helps keep those griefs from stacking up so much that they eventually topple over. It’s true for adults too, even those who weren’t TCKs themselves. Maybe a couple re-reads will help me get the specific process under my belt a bit more, because I’d like to try it once I feel familiar enough with it.

[Beth & Beyond · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an older TCK with a mostly positive upbringing, The Grief Tower helped remove the "rose-colored glasses" I've been wearing for forty years and face some personal baggage that needs unpacking. The book is short and concise, but it makes its point. The exercises are helpful for both adults looking back and those raising TCKs now.

Overall, this is a subject that needs a lot more scientific research with many, many case studies. Preferably, it would be conducted by someone who is not a TCK with the taint of personal experience though it is valuable that someone with these experiences has started the conversation. It's a good beginning and far more than I had at the age of eighteen when I was forced to return to my passport country and expected to be a "normal" American.

[Nancy DeValve · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a helpful book for TCKs and/or their caregivers. The main idea is to learn how to help your TCK child process grief as they go along and to not let it stack up. There are things that are truly traumatic and we usually do fairly well at debriefing those. But there are little, often unrecognized griefs that TCKs experience as "normal", such as the constant sense of loss (of home, of friends, of extended family, of putting down roots, etc). This book helps us recognize the two kinds of grief and some tools to help children work through them before they stack up.

Overall a good little guidebook but I feel the author could have gone into more detail than she did.

[Konstantina Tsoukalas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lauren's own experience as a third culture kid (TCK) processing her grief has produced this beautiful and invaluable grief processing guide for TCK caregivers, parents of TCKs, and even Adult TCKs (ATCKs). As a social worker and ATCK myself wading into the TCK care scene, this book provided me with fantastic strategies, questions, and processing methods to use with clients. Lauren's focus on preventive processing is crucial and, when implemented, will be transformative for expat families seeking to raise emotionally healthy TCKs.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent resource for those who work with TCKs and expats. That third culture/expat life is so beautiful and rich, but there's often a lot of hidden grief and loss to deal with. This is a short and to the point guide to help the TCKs and expats in your life to unpack that grief in a healthy way.

[Alaina · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Third Culture Kid myself, who is married to a TCK, and we are raising our own tck's in our home with living overseas- it is SO important to learn how to handle griefs in a healthy way. This book helps put practical tools in your hands in order to do this well.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent new resource for helping TCKs process grief. Kids who live overseas and periodically travel back and forth to their home countries experience so much loss and so many goodbyes. I appreciate this very practical book!

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful!

This book is a very quick read and still so deep! Many useful and practical al ways to dig into the process of debriefing with TCKs as a parent and a caregiver. Highly recommended for anyone working with TCKs.

[Wendy N · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a helpful book for any TCKs or parents of TCKs or those that work with TCKs. Highly practical and encourages exploration of what is otherwise left as a Blin spot or hidden sadness. Excellent and quick read!

[Dayna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Resource for TCK Families

This insightful guide is invaluable to helping TCKs process emotions in healthy ways. Highly recommend as required reading for all TCK families.

[Bethany B · Rating 4 out of 5]

An overview book with some good ideas and methods of processing grief with TCKs. Her ideas were practical but I haven't tried them out yet. A quick read that can easily by re-referenced through the process.

[LC Alvarez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend for anyone who is dealing with or dealing with TCK in your life.

[Matthew Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent resource for TCKs and their caregivers!

[Bethany Fader · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is super helpful for EVERYONE, not just TCK's. But I'm grateful for some helpful tips to make sure I'm working through this with my kids.

[Kenji · Rating 4 out of 5]

A moderately short but generally useful book on long-term grief stacking that is typical among those who grow up in a multi-cultural (third culture) environment.

[Jocelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short but practical. A good starting place for easy ways to begin unpacking grief with the TCKs in your life.

[Andrea Baker]

This was a quick book to read but I'll be thinking about it for awhile. It gave me a lot to process and think about for my TCKs!

[Julene Lapinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book

I read this book after watching the training on it. Both were helpful in giving practical steps of going through the process.

[Matthew Dawids · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enlightening, capturing a realisation that will dawn on all TCKs sooner or later. Succinct and easy to read, with clear, practical recommendations for unstacking the "grief tower".

[Emily Havens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick but practical read.

I wish it was just a bit longer with a few more tips. I still feel like I'm not quite sure how to implement the suggestions.

[Justin Hargrave · Rating 3 out of 5]

good content, a bit short \ felt like it needed to be fleshed out a lot more - but a good intro with practical exercises for TCKs to process - worth exploring.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot recommend this book enough, especially for TCKs, parents of TCKs, cross-cultural workers, and those working with them. But I think it is also very applicable for those who have gone through the pandemic as well. The accumulation of "little t" traumas can build a high and heavy tower indeed. This book was a very quick and practical read, which I found especially helpful to not get overwhelmed, particularly as I am walking through a huge transition with my family right now.