Have You Ever Hosted A Foreign Exchange Student? What Was The Experience Like?

In My Humble Opinion
1

A local woman works with a foreign exchange program, and she went on the town Facebook page recently, practically begging for people to be host families. I half-jokingly told her that I’d consider it if I had a spare bed, and she told me she’d start making phone calls.

I actually think it might be fun to host a kid from another country, provided that:

a) He was an only child at home, because he’d be an only child here.
b) He was non-religious, because we aren’t church-goers.
C) He wasn’t allergic to cats.

I’m not a parent, but I do have a “less is more” attitude towards parenting, so as long as he stayed out of my weed, treated the cat OK, and flushed the toilet, I see little room for conflict.

If you’ve hosted a foreign exchange student, what was the experience like?

2

My family has hosted foreign exchange students twice. The first time was terrific - we really bonded with him, and he with us. We still keep in touch with him and his family. We visited him in his home country, and he has been back to the US several times to visit us.

The second time was OK. He was a bit immature, and was homesick. He was probably also a bit depressed, and slept a lot. I’m not sure either he or we got much out of it that time.

We had similar-age kids at home both times. My wife and I have no plans to host any more exchange students now that our kids are grown. I think the experience would be much less enjoyable and meaningful for both sides without other kids in the house. Host siblings are an important, if not necessary, part of the experience, I think. Having said that, I know couples who have hosted exchange students without kids at home. It seemed to be OK, but not nearly the experience when there are similar age kids to go to school with, play sports, hang out with, etc. If you don’t have kids at home, I think you need to be ready to go the extra mile in making sure he/she finds friends, joins school activities, travels, etc. You should be ready to be a chauffeur, driving him to and from events, gatherings, activities, etc., as well as sight-seeing.

Just my two cents.

3

I have been a foreign student hosted by a family. Your first requirements seem very strange to me, specially the first. I can see “we won’t provide cab service to religious services” (would it be a problem to you if the guest got his own transportation?), but why do you think it would be a problem to have siblings at home? When you do, often “being without the siblings for a few days” is a teen’s idea of heaven.

My own “host sibling” was a 3yo, part of the arrangement was babysitting him. My hosts didn’t set foot in church, I walked there (it was in Ireland, not the US). Other students in my group were with huge families or childless ones, some were with families that were more religious than they were but in no case was this a cause of conflict (all parties involved were grown up enough to not try and “save” the other). Each experience was different, but so is each person.

4

We did all the time when I was in High School. My dad was in Rotary. It was fun, and the people were all great.

I got to participate and spent time in Brazil. There were some “behind the scenes” drama (I only found out after-the-fact) that kind of ruined much of it for me, but still had a great time.

I came home and found a German guy living with my folks. Turns out he was a “problem” and didn’t work out with the original people he was staying with, and my parents took him in. He and my dad hit it off famously, and all had a great time.

I would suggest doing it.

5

Not to be a wet blanket, but it sounds like you are more attuned to being an AirB&B for them than a family? You would be responsible for being a parent to a minor in this case, at some level.

6

My family has hosted students through AFS many times, and (except for one student sent home early) it was always a wonderful experience.
We had a girl from Chile who we loved but couldn’t stay to close to because she lost her English skills after she went home. Cards and letters are still exchanged. We had another girl from Tokyo who became a great friend (She took a day off of work to give me, my husband and MIL a tour of Tokyo). I didn’t get to know him as well, but they hosted a boy who was from Italy (He had been adopted from Korea, so there was much amusement as people tried to wrap their minds around a Korean-Italian). We also has short-term guests who were in the process of preparing to return home. I don’t know the whole story about the boy who was sent home early, but it was never intended he was going to stay with us long-term anyway. We loved the experiences, learning new things about places we never would have know about otherwise (a girl from Sri Lanka who had just spent 11 months in Alaska being the most exotic to me), trying new things and getting to know people in the AFS community.
I would say that the host family has to be very hospitable, as the exchange student will want to have friends over and, in the case of AFS, has to cook for guests and tell about their home in a party setting.
You have to remember that foreign exchange students are students, and (as Orwell stated) the family must be prepared to help them be active in school activities. You cannot treat an exchange student as a boarder or a guest, but as a member of the family, and just like families have to get their own kids places, you have to do the same.
If you are willing to take the time and make the accommodations, the experience is tremendously rewarding.

7

I would prefer an only-child simply because he would be used to being the only child at home, which is what he would be here. That’s all.

8

Depending on the family that would mean being someone who expects his needs to be tended to constantly, which doesn’t seem to go with “less is more”.

9

Maybe you can explain what you think is different about having siblings than not, which would be a significant enough difference to make this a preference.

I’m struggling to figure out what the issue is.

Thanks.

10

If the child lives at home with no other siblings in Outer Slombovia, then the situation will be familiar to him when he lives in a home in Missouri with no “siblings” in it. If the child has siblings in OS, he’ll be lonely in Missouri. At least, that’s my way of thinking.

11

I guess I’m thinking these kids are high school students and can probably handle it.

12

Being six years older than my next brother, I was more of a mother than a sister. Neighbors thought I was the maid. My brothers played together, I never did. The youngest once told me that he didn’t feel a family connection with me until he was 17 and the music I already had came back in fashion. You’re making a lot of assumptions based on a single piece of data.

13

I also agree that siblings at home is a non-issue. Kids become exchange students to improve their use of a second language, experience a different culture, make new friends and become part of another family. Brothers and sisters at home is irrelevant.

But, like I said previously, part of being a host family is encouraging the foreign student to play sports, join clubs, make friends, sight-see, etc… And provide necessary transportation for all of that. I know of a few sad instances where host families wouldn’t allow the kids to join school sports teams or clubs and wouldn’t take them places. That makes for a long, unfulfilling experience.

14

My wife and I did 5 years ago. She was from Finland and attended a local high school. The complaints from her started right after she moved in, no private bath, quiet time came too early (I go to bed at 7:30 pm) and we lived too far from any social activities. Her expectations came from watching American TV and assumed we all lived in 5000 square foot mansions. She found some place else to live a month after she moved in. I found out when I came home from work and all her stuff was gone. No call, no note, nothing. We went from highly recommended to poor based on her input alone. We decided that experiment failed and we won’t consider doing it again.

15

Back in the '70’s my family hosted 3 or 4 exchange students. One was taken in when the family she was watched with didn’t work out for some reason. She was fine with us. One was from a rich family in Argentina. He was used to maid service and no chores. His mother wrote mine to thank her when he returned home housebroken. We’re Facebook friends now. Another was from a family in the Dominican Republic. The opposite spectrum from the Argentinian, he was grateful for everything.

Anyway, we were a family with 5 kids, and extras always hanging around anyway. One kid more or less didn’t faze us.

StG

16

It wasn’t an exchange student exactly, but I did host a guy in his very early 20’s from India who worked for the Indian office of the company I work for. He was pretty sheltered and young, and here for a while, so my company paid me to host him while he was here. It was basically non-stop culture shock. His English sucked too, which didn’t help things.

Weird things to note:

Terrible bathroom habits. Pee everywhere. Very awkward discussions about how to use the toilet didn’t rectify things. Pantomimed peeing like a westerner and everything. How to dispose of used toilet paper at least did stick.

Weird oil stains in his room after he left. It was like he was applying it to his body and it went everywhere. I replaced the carpet upstairs shortly after he left anyways, but yuck.

He thought I was crazy or incredibly poor because I didn’t have someone cooking and cleaning for me. We had dinner one night at the president’s house and I honestly think my Indian guest thought the president’s wife was a servant.

Deathly afraid of African-Canadians. Shaking, eyes like saucers, etc. We passed a black guy on the street who was wearing camo pants and my Indian friend literally hid behind me until the guy passed. Once asked about the “trouble with the blacks” but I had no clue how to answer. We had lots of conversations that ended with blinking from me.

Despite having way worse English than the average Indian, he would talk at length incomprehensibly in broken English. I took to just saying “ah, wow!” at pauses.

Hugging or touching was really uncomfortable for him. I hugged him as he was leaving the house for the last time, and the president’s wife hugged him as he left their place after dinner. Same reaction both times; stand stiff with arms at sides, and stare wide-eyed into the distance.

I did a lot of his dishes and washing up for him because he simply wasn’t doing it/didn’t know how. He usually ate basic food that required no cooking. Tried to make rice one time while I was out of the house, and I came back to rice burned to the bottom of the pot, a perfect circular hole in my tablecloth, and a circular burn mark in my kitchen table. The rice had started to smoke, and he simply took it off the burner and placed it on the table. I made sure to smile and tell him it was OK, but that sucked. I tossed the table when my fiancee moved in with me.

Less than a year after he left, he got married in a huge Indian wedding. Invited a good chunk of the company in Canada (especially upper management) and didn’t invite me. No one made the trip (for obvious reasons) but I said a quiet “fuck you” under my breath when I heard that invites had gone out and I was left off. Dickhead.