I remember holding my kindergarten class picture while snuggling with my mom one night at bedtime. She pointed at each face and asked me to tell her something about that kid. Was he kind or funny? Was that girl a good friend? We still have inside jokes that came out of that conversation, like the classmate I said was nice, "but…he farts." We've laughed a lot about that description over the years. We certainly did that night.

Looking back, I realize she had so much to do in the evenings—she was a full-time working mother with a husband and two kids. But I never felt that she was looking at the clock. She had time for me. She wanted to know what's going on in my world, and what I thought about it.

When we moved overseas in middle school, I struggled. I was quiet and shy anyway, and I'd never been abroad before. Everything felt unfamiliar. I hated going to school every morning. I didn't know anyone, and they all knew each other (or at least it seemed to me—though in my international school about a third of the students were new each year). The girls I ate lunch with stole sodas from the cafeteria and talked about drinking on the weekend.

I felt completely out of place.

At home after school, my mom asked about the kids in my grade. Were there any I could see becoming friends with? Were any kind or funny? Some were, I admitted, but they already had friends. They didn't need me.

I wanted to change schools. She said no. I asked her to homeschool me. She told me to stick it out. I begged and pleaded to stay home from the class trip, where the entire grade spent a week early on in the school year camping and hiking and doing other outdoor activities. I thought it would be the worst week of my life.

She sympathized, but didn't let me stay home.

She listened to my worries about the trip. She let me take books to read in case I didn’t find people to talk to.

She prayed with me, that I would make one good friend on that trip.

I went, feeling nearly sick with dread—and came home beaming five days later. "I asked for one friend," I told my mom, "and God gave me everybody!" The girls I had been eating lunch with didn't go on that trip, but the rest of our small class had. By the end of the week I'd become, if not good friends, at least friendly with the rest of the grade. I even looked forward to the bus pulling up on Monday morning.

As that year progressed, my mom continued to ask about my friends. I told her what countries they were from and what classes we had together, and whether they were kind or funny. I told her when embarrassing things happened to me or to them. I told her who was trustworthy. I shared all the details—maybe even too many—with her, just as I had in kindergarten.

She listened.

She laughed at my stories and asked questions about my day. She might have been sipping coffee or preparing dinner while we talked, but she paid attention as I shared. She asked how arguments got resolved, reminded me of thoughtful things friends had done for me when I forgot them, and noticed negative patterns in others that I was too close to see. I didn't feel judgement, just concern.

When we moved back to the US in high school, I struggled even more. The kids around me had all grown up together. I was miserable once again. I didn't want to tell my mom that I often chose to eat in the hallway in front of my locker that first year, because lunchroom conversations were mostly about drugs and clubs and sleeping around.

I felt even more out of place with the American kids than when I was living overseas and going to school with students of all different nationalities.

I wanted to shut down.

But my mom encouraged me to keep talking. So I did. On days I felt lonely at school, coming home to talk to her was a refuge. She always asked about my day. As I made friends, she kept our home open to them, even when I'm sure she would have rather not had a pack of teenagers traipsing around.

Later, on weekends home from college, we'd stay up late, both of us drinking coffee and gabbing about life and God and lessons we were learning.

As much as I'd like to stay up late and talk with her now about life face to face, we live in different countries. But she's there, just a phone call away. And she still wants to know everything going on in my world.

When I tuck my four TCKs into their beds at night, they love to tell me one last story. I admit, I don't always feel like sticking around for another five minutes when there are dishes to be finished and time with my husband waiting and movies to start.

But I think of my mom, patiently listening to my stories about farting kindergarteners, and I know that this is the gateway to a lifetime of conversations with them. And that investing time to be a part of their world now can give me a place in their life later, when they need a refuge, and when their stories aren't about farts or Minecraft or space aliens, but friendship troubles, struggles, and God.

So I listen. I definitely have time for that.

How do you help your struggling TCKs? How did someone help you during while you were growing up overseas?