Culture Shock

Robin Pascoe in her book "Raising Global Nomads" (2006) shares her own lessons learned from raising her two children while living abroad, with examples you will definitely recognize and laugh about.

Talking about Culture Shock she explains the different stages: the honeymoon period (everything is interesting and enchanting), the crisis stage (everything is foreign, no longer exotic, although the mom often skips the honeymoon stage having to arrange everything at once), the flight stage (you want to run away and your kids are asking to go home) and readjustment to the new surroundings and having found a new balance your life.

Be aware that Culture Shock is not a single event, but a process in which an individual has to adjust to an unfamiliar surrounding. It is an subjective experience and everyone moving abroad will experience it, although in different ways. Acknowledge it and learn from it while going through the process, on average it will take you and your family one year to adjust. But also keep in mind that sometimes "it's not the place, it's just life that's happening here. Things go wrong no matter where you are."

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