Hosting a foreign exchange student

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Has anyone here ever hosted a exchange student in their house? My wife and I have talked about this in the past. We have a 15 year old daughter and we think it would be good for her and the exchange student. I think exposure to other cultures and viewpoints is always helpful. I asked my daughter and she seems pretty intrigued by the idea, so I am thinking it might be worth looking into again.

The guy who sits next to me at work is having an exchange student join his family this upcoming week and it has started me thinking about it again, so I brought it up at dinner and everyone still seems interested.

So what are your experiences if any? Good? Bad? Indifferent?

2

I was an exchange student, and we hosted several when I was a teenager/adult (I have a lot of younger siblings). Now that I’m a grownup we don’t have room in our house.

Experiences were mostly good (except for that one kid who blamed the Jews, or the Albanians, for everything and consistently cheated in school). My own trip was life-changing, good, and difficult. I think you need a lot of patience and tolerance–it’s not easy to parent someone else’s teen, who just happens to be going through culture shock and all. I suppose most kids show up to the US knowing quite a bit of English, but from my own perspective, I had to learn the language from scratch and even though I got nearly fluent, it was still like being in a fog all the time. There were always things going on I didn’t know about, and it was easy to look like a flake because I just hadn’t realized that something was happening that I was supposed to be in on, or I’d misunderstood what it was. (I wasn’t terribly sorry on the day I failed to go on a special field trip–to a crematorium.) I would expect the same to be true of a kid coming here even if English fluency wasn’t that big an issue.

Your basic teen is pretty self-centered, right, and being an exchange student is such hard work that it kind of exacerbates that. The kid is kind of freaked out by the overwhelmingness of it, thinking “Woo I’m on my own without my parents–I can do anything I want!”, very interested in meeting cute guys/girls, extra tired from the hard work, doing a lot of thoughtless things by not thinking, probably wanting to behave well (but not necessarily), and looking for beer–all at once. There will be issues.

That said, I don’t want you to take all that as a terrible warning–for the most part I’ve had good experiences, and I’m forever grateful that I did it myself. 15 is a good age to start. Exchanging is great–it’s just not easy. You might want to ease into it by getting a summer student or semester before hosting for a whole year. We used to get Japanese girls for 3 weeks at a time before we got year students and that was always wonderful, lots of fun without enough time to hit problems.

Hope that’s helpful.

3

Former exchange student here. I was on a one-year program, new family every two months, which was probably designed to avoid problems that can crop up when you live in close quarters for extended periods. I had five families. One was lousy, two were so-so, one was great, and one was fantastic. I think that ratio was about the same for most of the kids on my program.

The good families all had kids either slighty younger or slightly older than me, which really helped. We got along great. The kids themselves were really well-adjusted and smart. The lousy family had kids my age as well, but in addition to being typical teenagers, they had some obvious behaviour problems. I’ve always wondered if the parents thought that maybe having an exchange student would help their kid.

Looking back, the kids at my good families obviously enjoyed the experience and they got a lot out of it (I know that two kids ended up studying abroad themselves). If your daughter is a good kid, I would think that it would be a really cool thing for her. If you already have your hands full with a teenage daughter - my sister was devilspawn when she was 15-16 - you may want to re-think having another teenager in the house. With your luck he’d be some stupidly good-looking boy from Norway or something, or some smooth Romance-language talking dude.

On the flip side, you could end up with the problem one of my friends’ family had; they were hosting a Japanese girl who by all accounts was all kinds of smokin’. Apparently the host dad took an overly enthusiastic interest in her. Things kinda spiralled out of control when he told her he wasn’t divorcing his wife for a 17yr old…

My exchange student experience literally changed the course of my life, and I owe my family and my entire career to the experiences and people I’ve encountered starting from the first plane trip. I heartily recommend it to anyone that wants to get involved.

4

Thanks for the responses–pretty much the issues I had thought of. I am worried about a teen living in my house. I like the idea of a shorter stint, and will probably go that route. But I do think the program seems like a good idea, but a year seems like a bad idea if the kid is bad news, I can tolerate anything for a couple of months though.

Luckily my daughter is a good kid and we don’t (so far) have the typical teenage angst that I was worried about and had heard so much about. A little of course, I doubt you can escape it all, but not too much drama in the big scheme of things. So based on what I am reading here and just living with her, I think she would do well with an exchange student.

5

Dated a guy for several years whose family hosted exchange students regularly, so I was around them fairly often. I think they did it to make a little money on the side, because I distinctly remember one who came from an upper-middle class family and wanted to eat accordingly. Rather than make an effort to help her out (I mean, you’re a stranger in a strange land, the least you can do is have your comfort food) the family complained about how much she liked bell peppers in the winter, and she ended up buying her own food at times.

That said, you gotta be flexible. You can’t just see this as “oh, how nice for our kids it’ll be!” It takes work, it takes letting someone into your home 24/7. Have you had a babysitter or nanny all day for your kids before? Do you know what it’s like to have someone see you when you fight, disagree, or walk around half clothed? I know money’s not an issue for you, but take all the expenses of your kid and double them. Can you make it on what they give you? Do you travel much? Chances are good the kid will want to travel, to major cities to sight see and shop.

6

When I was in early high school, we got an exchange student who was a few years older. He was from Spain. We really enjoyed him. I remember he used a LOT of cologne and smoked and would stay up really late watching TV to learn English. He helped me with my Spanish homework.

A few years later, after he graduated, he came and visited us for a few weeks. I think he and my parents stayed in touch for quite a while before losing touch.

7

**lindsaybluth **well as far as I know you don’t get paid for this. You have to provide room and board is all. But I agree we would need to provide some comfort foods for the kid–hell the poor girl is continents away from her family and culture, etc. But I also look at it as an opportunity to provide a view of our culture to her. So a bit of a balancing act I think.

We have had a sitter (not really a nanny) who we have taken with us on vacation when our daughter was younger so we could enjoy the places we were going on vacation. Not quite the same as your point but close enough that I understand what you are trying to say. Our house is the ‘kid house’ so we typically have 2 of my daughters friends here on Friday and Saturday nights, so I have learned to deal with having other kids in my house.

thanks for your thoughts

8

**Skammer **I hadn’t thought about the smoking issue (no one in our house smokes) but I believe you can put parameters around what is acceptable as they place kids, but it is something I need to look into

I do like the idea though that we could keep in touch afterwards and visit that kid in their home country–that has a certain appeal to it to me for some reason.
Thanks

9

Sounds like you’re in a good position overall, but I would hesitate to compare being the “kid house” to having someone living with you full time. I think it’s more like having a college roommate that is completely different from you (different sleeping/eating/homework schedules) than being the “kid house”. My house growing up was (and is for my youngest brother right now) the “kid house”. My mom doesn’t mind playing host at all, frequently makes food/drink for all of them, but she also knows that she needs family/private time with just “us”. It’s not just like picking up another kid that’s well behaved and kind like yours is, just who speaks a different language - it’s like picking up a total stranger at the airport and bringing them into your home.

The few students I saw come and go in the old boyfriend’s house, most of them were nice and got along swell with the family. But 1-2 were simply like fire and ice, and it was a struggle for all involved. You just don’t know which kind you’re going to get.

10

I was also an exchange student for a year when I first came to the US. It had its ups and downs, and I do have regrets about some of the choices that I made during the year, but overall it was a pretty decent experience. I was the first student that my family had ever hosted, and they went on to host a couple more students after I had left, so clearly they enjoyed the experience too. It’s been almost 15 years now (wow!) and we still keep in touch.

They don’t have any kids of their own, so I can’t say anything about that. My one advice is this: You know the saying “assume makes an ass out of you and me”? That’s especially true in a cross-cultural situation. Make sure everyone understands what the expectations are, and work hard to create an environment where the student can feel comfortable about asking any questions, no matter how stupid they may seem.

11

When my family got an exchange student in the early 90’s, you got to choose which student you wanted from a large batch of profiles, which included the students own answers to several questions. That made it much less likely to get someone who was incompatible with your family.

12

We hosted a German boy for about 3 weeks, when my son was a junior in high school. Lars was maybe a year older at most, so they got along fine. My son had had 2 years of German, and Lars’ english was very good, so communicating wasn’t much of a problem. The next year, my son went to Germany for 3 weeks, and stayed with Lars’ family, so he had some idea of what to expect. A year or 2 after, Lars and his brother came back to the US on vacation, and stayed with us for a week or so. We were basically a free place to stay that time, but it was still nice to see him.

I 2nd the idea of going with a short-term stay if this is your first time. Our high school has been doing this sort of exchange for about 20 years now with a school in Germany. We’d send 20 or so kids there in the summer, they’d send a passel over when their schools were on break. Each group got a chance to go to school with their host family, but they also did visits around the country. Lars and his group went to the state capitol, visited a large american university, went to Chicago shopping, etc. We took him with us on a weekend trip up north to Mackinac Island, too. The exchange kids and the host kids did a lot together as a group - sports, shopping, etc. They LOVED the mall - there was nothing like this at home in their town.

There are things you need to work out ahead of time. If their culture or legal structure treats an issue differently than yours, you need to be clear on it up front. Smoking was mentioned already, if that’s a problem for you. Drinking is another. Lars, coming from Germany, was old enough to drink legally at home. Here, we didn’t let him. Also, driving, curfew, music, dating (or overnight guests) and religion come to mind. Phone usage, too - if your exchange student needs to call home every other day, you might want to be sure that both parties can use Skype ahead of time. In fact, that might be a good way to communicate with them NOW, before they arrive.

I’m not saying don’t do it. If I had another kid at this age, I’d be happy to do the same thing all over again. I only want to point out areas that you can and should address ahead of time.

13

See this thread from IMHO for other information.

StG

14

Actually this is something that I think should be discouraged. When you’re an exchange student, calling home all the time leaves you stuck with one foot at home and one foot in your host country, and it creates problems. You spend way too much time thinking about home when you should be adjusting and living in your new place. I know people think it sounds heartless, but it’s my firm belief that an exchange student shouldn’t call home more than a few times in a year. It is really much easier and less painful that way, and you live more fully where you are.

I did my exchange before cell phones and email and all, and it’s probably much harder now to resist the temptation. But it really does work better.

15

I am a high school teacher at a school which has about ten foreign students in a typical year. Each student is usually hosted by the family of someone who’s in school. I know that it’s frequently a very positive experience for both the foreign students, the American students, and the parents. I can name several cases where the friendships formed lasted for a long time. So I am definitely not advising against it, but I do want to mention a scenario that once came up.

We had a student from South Korea who was extremely bright, motivated, and hard-working. He felt intense pressure to succeed and it was this, presumably, that lead him to a major act of cheating and plagiarism on an English paper. As a result he was expelled from school. At the same time, his father in South Korea basically disowned him, which (as best we could tell) was related to that culture’s beliefs about family honor. So the family here in Virginia was stuck for several months with a child who had no home or family to return to and was going through a severe emotional crisis–not a good situation.

16

thanks for the link–that was very insightful. I need to think on this for a bit but I like the idea of a short term situation to start with. Some of the stories there were a bit surprising as I had thought the students would have been screened a bit more, but that might depend totally on the agency. I can’t believe I missed that thread as it was only a couple of months ago.