Transitions in the Midst of Conflict: Supporting Third Culture Kids Through Abrupt Goodbyes
End of school year. Usually the time when I write about "How to say a clear Goodbye in order to say a clear Hello."
About the families preparing to leave, packing up flats, returning library books, taking one last photo at the school gate. About the families staying, navigating the particular grief of watching friends disappear while their own life continues. About the quiet art of ending well, so that what comes next can begin well too.
This year is different.
Where families are right now
Shortly after the conflict escalated in our region at the end of February, my children and I left Dubai to stay with friends in Munich. We were away for almost six weeks. Being COVID-trained, my kids managed distance learning across the time zones remarkably well, the usual ups and downs, but nothing we couldn't handle.
What we didn't anticipate was that some of the friends we said a temporary goodbye to, we still haven't seen again. And we don't yet know if we will in September.
That's the reality for many families in this region right now, and it looks different for each one:
Some left after Term 2 and have decided not to come back
Some left and are still deciding over the summer whether to return in September
Some stayed but are quietly running Plan B or Plan C in the background
Some are in what would have been a normal leaving cycle, assignment ending, move planned, except nothing about this year has felt normal
Some have lost jobs entirely, adding financial weight on top of everything else
These are not tidy transitions. They don't fit the standard end-of-year script. And they deserve to be named.
The transition cycle, and where we are in it
Transitions care recognises that moving, whether you are the one leaving or the one staying, follows a cycle. There is an ending, an in-between, a new beginning and a settled-in stage. Each stage has its own emotional work.
Right now, most families in this region are somewhere beneath that cycle, not cleanly in any one stage. Some ended abruptly in February without realising it was an ending. Some are ending now. Some are suspended, not yet knowing which way the summer will go.
The important thing to understand is that the cycle doesn't complete itself just because life resumes. Unfinished transitions don't disappear, they go quiet. They surface later, in children who seem fine, in families who got back to routine. This might show up as a restlessness that doesn't have a name yet.
Third Culture Kids, and why this matters for them specifically
Third Culture Kids, children who have spent a significant part of their lives in a culture different from their parents' native culture, often due to their parents' work or lifestyle, build their sense of home differently from children who grow up in one place.
Their home is made of people, not the same street names. Their friendships carry the knowing that they are temporary. Their identity is built, in part, from the accumulation of places they have belonged to and left.
This means that abrupt or unresolved transitions hit them differently. Not necessarily harder, TCKs are often remarkably resilient. But without closure, they carry an invisible weight: a friendship that ended without a goodbye, a place they loved that they never got to say farewell to.
And it's not too late to attend to that weight.
Making RAFT work when you've already left
The RAFT framework, developed by David Pollock and Ruth Van Reken in their foundational work on Third Culture Kids, is the gold standard for navigating school transitions well.
RAFT stands for Reconciliation (resolving unfinished relational business), Affirmation (telling people they mattered), Farewell (marking the ending), and Think Destination (orienting gently toward what comes next).
RAFT assumes you have time to prepare. Many families this year didn't.
But here's what I've come to understand: RAFT can be done retroactively. Imperfectly, yes. But the emotional work it offers is still available.
My 14-year-old was fortunate enough to travel to Denmark to say goodbye to his best friend. It was quite a train ride. But I'm so glad we made it happen. Something in him settled after that trip in a way that weeks of distance hadn't.
Not every family can do that. But here are six things you and your children can do, wherever you are right now.
1. Schedule goodbye video calls, with friends and teachers
Don't let the end of term be the last contact. A proper goodbye call, even a short one, gives children the chance to say what they didn't get to say in person. Teachers matter here too, a five-minute call with a favourite teacher can do more than you might expect. This is RAFT's Farewell and Affirmation in action, even after the fact.
2. Put up photos of favourite places
Print a few and put them up in your current home. Revisit them together. Name what you loved about each one. This sounds small, but it is a form of farewell, acknowledging that a place was real and mattered, before moving on.
3. Cook a meal from the UAE
Food carries memory in a way that words don't always reach. Involve your children in making something, a dish you ate regularly, something from a favourite restaurant, a recipe you picked up along the way. Let the meal be a small ceremony of remembrance.
4. Build a memory together
Watch videos or look through photos from your time there, as a family, not alone. Not to dwell, but to close. To say: this happened, we were here, it was ours. Take it a step further and create a shared digital memory book in Canva. Let the children lead it.
5. Sit down as a family: what do you miss most?
Give everyone a turn, including yourself. Name it out loud. You don't have to fix it, just witness it together. And if it feels right, make a plan to visit again one day. Having something to look forward to transforms goodbye forever into goodbye for now.
6. Name it to tame it, use an emotion wheel
When we can't find the language for what we're feeling, we can't begin to process it. This is true for children, and for adults too. An emotion wheel or feeling cards give everyone in the family a way in. Sit with it together. Point to what's there. You might be surprised what surfaces when the words are suddenly available.
A note for parents: work with your school
If your children are still in school for the remaining weeks of term, consider reaching out to their teacher or school counsellor. You don't need to have everything figured out. A simple message, "we left abruptly in February and I'm not sure my child fully processed it," is enough to open the door.
Good schools want this conversation. Transitions care is not an add-on to education. It's part of how children are able to learn, connect, and belong in the next place.
The work is still possible, despite the uncertainty
Let's not forget that the situation in the region is not resolved. It's calm now. I'm grateful for it. But calm is not the same as "it's over."
The overall limbo continues. It's a constant layer added to everything we do, that is sometimes more felt, sometimes not so much.
If your family left abruptly, if you're still unsure about September, if your children said goodbye to a classroom and a friend group without knowing it was goodbye, that transition is not finished just because the situation is stable for now.
The work is still possible.
The endings that don't get marked have a way of following people into their beginnings.
And now I'd love to hear from you: what has helped your family through this year's transitions? What have you tried, or wish you had? Please share with me here: hello@vivianeimhofbraun.com
PS: For some families, what happened this year goes beyond transition. If your child, or you, are still carrying the weight of what you heard and experienced during those weeks, that deserves its own attention and its own support, please don't hesitate to reach out to a mental health professional.
PPS: This article reflects my own experience and perspective, based in Dubai. I am aware that for families in other parts of the region, the situation was, and continues to be, significantly more severe. My thoughts are with them.