FINDING PEACE UNDER ONE ROOF: A WORKBOOK FOR FAMILIES LIVING TOGETHER AS ADULTS – July 2020
If you’re a parent whose student moved back home and you aren’t sure how to give them the autonomy and independence to develop their own identity while ensuring they are safe this is the workbook for you. If you’re a student who moved back in with their parents and you’re struggling to figure out how to have conversations about boundaries and realities of your life, this is the workbook for you.
- Reflection to identify needs, current state of mind, and needs
- Conversation starters, topics, and rules of the road to start the dialogue
- Roommate template/agreement to address conflict mitigation before it starts!
BELONGING BEYOND BORDERS – December 2022
So often I hear Third Culture Kids (TCKS) (re)tell their stories of belonging(s) through their TCK lens, and yet their descriptions of belonging(s) are not exclusive to TCKs. How do you define belonging? Where do you belong? How do you belong? How does your story of belonging connect to “your” people, “your” countries, and “your” faith journey? In this workbook “Belonging Beyond Borders,” we explore patterns in belonging, boundaries for belonging, and opportunities of belonging.
PRAISE for Belonging Beyond Borders:
“In the most lovely way, Megan Norton is inviting all to find a new way of discovering and naming our identity. Her model doesn’t wait for the others to name us, but through the beautiful language and metaphors she uses, we are challenged first to consider how we have been naming ourselves or allowing others to name us. Through reflective and meditative pieces, we are then invited to places of self-discovery and helpful reflection.”
“Megan writes with endless love and concern for TCKs, and with a huge
amount of courage and vision for their personal development challenges
and needs. Her compassion combines with care that offers practical
insights into living into the selves and the stories that we want,
inviting the kind of authorship and ownership that so many of us need.”
“This is a wonderful contribution to the work out there for TCKs! I love that TCKs can self direct through this and I feel like it reads well to older TCKs as well as college age. The issues you touch on I’m working with in clients in their 50s and 60s too. I really appreciate the self-reflection prompts… they are great journaling guides as well as more structured worksheets and I can see them being of so much use to TCKs in applying theory to their own lived realities.”
“It’s fresh, it’s lovely, it is accessible, it is true, and it is good! It is nice to read something that adds lots of new things to the basics…a million folks are writing about transition, but this is the first book I have seen so clearly outline belonging and I love that you are unabashedly Christian, yet folks from any religious background can read and not feel pressured…that is not easy to do and this may be one of the gifts of you not being an MK [missionary kid]…but you are definitely being salt and light.”
“The chapters’ self reflection exercises are practical, helpful, and beneficial to your reader. It’s clear you are a good teacher :)!”
“I needed this book and I’m sure you know first hand the amount of people this book will help. It’s important and needed and I’m grateful for it.
Great job… now hurry up and publish so I can buy a copy and copies for other TCKs I know.”
LISTEN TO MY SONG OF HOME – forthcoming April 2023
One of the most time consuming questions for me to answer as an Adult Third Culture Kid is “Where are you from?” Having grown up in six countries and having lived in four more as an adult, in addition to the 5 U.S. States I’ve been a resident of, I typically respond to this question with a question like, “At which point in my life? Do you mean where I was born or where I grew up? Or where I live now?”
During all of these transitions from country to country, my family would spend some time at what the U.S. Department of State calls our “Home Leave Address;” in other words, the address where we would be living in between homes abroad and where any mail or official documents were sent while between country assignments. This address was my Grandparent’s home in Whitehall, Michigan. Summer after summer between overseas moves, I would spend countless hours in the nature of West Michigan. I especially loved the trees across the street from my Grandparent’s house and since being back in Michigan as an adult, I have realized how in and through all the change in my life, these trees remain steadfast and a visual representation of the “roots” I’ve developed in this place.
Recently, I have been doing a lot of (re)considering about my concept of “home” as an Adult Third Culture Kid. At the core of it, I am wondering where my tap roots are. Certainly Michigan holds a deep one metaphorically and physically.
One way I have processed this intentional (and at times painful) reflection process is by writing. In doing so, I have crafted a children’s book inspired by true events and experiences in my own life that have reflected the importance of place-making and root-making in a globally mobile upbringing.
The book’s theme centers around a globally mobile family’s experience in being moved back and forth from one country to another with their “home base” being Michigan. Their home in Michigan has a backyard tree that they recognize as a marker of “home” for their children. The tree house built in this particular tree has all the places and dates carved on the slats to showcase where their past homes abroad have been. After coming back to their States-side home from one overseas assignment, the family discovers that this tree has been cut down and their tree house has been abandoned. Yet, they find a way to honor their grief of this emotionally abrupt change and discover a unique way to process it with what remains of their tree.
I’m pleased to share that Summertime Publishing will publish this book this year! Also, I’m so incredibly honored and delighted that my friend and fellow ATCK, Mikaela Newbanks, will be doing all the illustrations for it.
I am seeking financial contributors in the crowdfunding campaign for the publishing of it! A crowdfunding link will be posted here shortly! Thank you so much for considering helping out with my publishing costs!
Megan C. Norton 