Going "Home" Doesn't Always Feel Like Home Anymore

When Children Return to Their Home Country for Summer Holidays.

For many international families, summer means packing suitcases and flying back to the country they once called home.

Grandparents are waiting at the airport. Friends are excited to reconnect. Favourite foods are back on the menu. Everyone expects it to feel like coming home.

But for children, returning "home" can bring more mixed emotions than many adults expect. And as a parent, it can catch you completely off guard.

Two Places Can Feel Like Home

Children who live abroad often develop genuine connections to more than one place. Not in a confused or half-hearted way, but fully, in two directions at once.

They may miss their old home while living abroad. They may also miss their new home while visiting their home country. And sometimes, in the middle of a holiday surrounded by family who love them, they don't fully feel they belong in either place.

This is one of the defining experiences of being a third culture kid — a child raised between cultures, building their identity from pieces of more than one place. It can feel confusing, not only for children, but also for the parents watching it unfold.

We often think of home as one fixed place. But for children growing up abroad, home becomes something more layered. It stretches across countries, languages, and time zones. It lives in more than one address.

"When Are We Going Back?"

Many parents are caught off guard when their child asks to return to their new country after only a few days of visiting family.

It can sting a little. You've planned this trip for months. You've imagined the joy on your child's face when they see their grandparents again. But it doesn't mean they don't love their grandparents. It doesn't mean they aren't enjoying the holiday.

It simply means they have built a life somewhere else too — with its own routines, its own friendships, and its own sense of normal.

Missing that life isn't a rejection of this one. Both things can be true.Your child can love being here and still ache for there.

Big Feelings Can Show Up — All at Once

Returning to a home country can bring a surprising mix of emotions:

- Excitement at seeing familiar faces

- Anxiety about fitting back in

- Overstimulation from too many people, too much noise, and too much change in too short a time

- Sadness for what is no longer part of everyday life

- Confusion about where they truly belong

Children may feel happy and unsettled at the very same moment.

They might cry at a birthday party. They might become quiet around people they used to know well. They might ask, more than once, when they're going "home" meaning the home you just left.

None of this means something is wrong.

Different feelings can exist together, even when they seem to contradict one another.

How Parents Can Help

Talk About It Before You Travel. Naming the complexity in advance helps children make sense of it when it appears.

You might say:

"It's okay if you're excited to see Grandma and still miss home."

"You might feel lots of different things at once, and that's completely normal."

Giving children language for mixed emotions before they experience them can make those feelings feel far less overwhelming.

Keep Some Familiar Routines

Even during the busiest holiday schedule, familiar routines help children feel grounded.

A favourite bedtime story. A comfort item from home. Five quiet minutes before bed that look the same no matter which country you're in.

These small consistencies remind children that some things stay the same, even when everything around them changes.

Make Space for Goodbyes

Just as moving abroad involved saying goodbye, leaving family after a summer visit can bring another wave of emotions, sometimes even harder than the ones at the start of the trip.

• Allow space for those feelings.

• Don't rush from the airport farewell straight into the next thing.

• A goodbye deserves space, even a small one.

• Let Your Child Hold Both Places

• Avoid the temptation to make your child choose a favourite.

Questions like, "Aren't you happy to be home?" can unintentionally suggest there's a right answer.

Instead, try:

"It makes sense that you miss both places."

"You belong in both."

A Final Thought

For internationally mobile children — and especially for third culture kids — home is often bigger than one country.

Home can be people.

Home can be memories.

Home can be a grandparent's kitchen and a favourite playground on the other side of the world.

Home can be a language, a routine, or the people they love most.

And perhaps that is one of the most beautiful things about growing up abroad, and also one of its quiet challenges.

Because for children growing up abroad, home was never meant to be just one place. Sometimes, home is all of those things at once.