Hosting Foreign Exchange Students

[carnation]

Has anybody done it? We're thinking of taking 2, maybe 2 Japanese girls.

[ThetaDancer]

When I was in high school, my family hosted 2 exchange students (at separate times though). Both were from Germany and both stayed for 1 month. We had two completely different experiences.

The guy who stayed with us was friendly, smart, so happy to have this opportunity, etc. It was a very positive experience for him and for our family.

However, the girl who stayed with us was quite the opposite...she was rude and short-tempered and just all around extremely awkward and judgmental. Even though it was a challenging experience at the time, I think we all learned SO much from it. I don't know how much this post will help but I'd be happy to tell you more if you're interested

[bejazd]

I've had a Japanese girl, 2 Spanish boys and a boy from Australia. My parents hosted a girl from Czech Repub.

It's a great experience for your family but go into it with no expectations of a forever pen pal type relationship. The Japanese girl spoke very little English- I have no idea if she was having a good time or not! The Spanish boys had a hard time with American family life: making your own bed was really odd to them as they were used to servants in the home. The Australian was a kick in the pants. He loved shopping here and watching cartoons on the Disney channel. None of them really liked Mexican food...my kids just could not understand that at all!

[carnation]

It's so hard to choose a student! I was looking at Japan, a Latino country, or Scandinavia but my husband was all about Japan since it was the only country listed from which we've adopted children. There's one interesting-sounding Korean girl whom we might go with...what I'd like to find would be kids who want to join some of the high school activities or teams here and really dive into the American experience.

We've known 2 families who unexpectedly took students whose host families were being awful to them. The agencies wouldn't even talk about what had happened to the kids--anyway, the new families and the students did end up having a wonderful time!

[ISUKappa]

We hosted an exchange student from Finland my senior year of high school. It was a mostly good experience, but very difficult for me to adjust to having someone my age in the house again. (I'm the youngest and my older sisters had been out of the house for 7 and 4 years). We weren't BFF, like I had envisioned, and that led to a lot of jealousy and hurt feelings because she was the cool foreign exchange student and I was just same, boring old me. BUT, we did get along fairly well and had good moments and memories.

It took her a bit to get adjusted - difference in culture, drinking age, etc... but she did fairly well after a few months. She had an allowance from her family for spending money, would call home 1-2 times/month and wrote letters and emails to friends and family back in Finland. We all sat down not long after she arrived and put down some basic guidelines and expectations so we were all on the same page WRT expenses and what she was going to contribute to our family life and vice versa.

We kept somewhat in touch for a year or so after she went back to Finland. My parents spent some time with her one summer while visiting Europe and we recently just got back in touch on Facebook.

[PhoenixAzul]

Carnation, are you in close proximity to any universities? I don't know how this would work in the states, but here in the UK, lots of internationals have "contact families", where they don't necessarily live with them (most don't), but the families have them over for sunday dinner or take them on holiday or take them shopping or to an attraction. They act as "ambassadors" of Scotland basically, helping them get set up with GP's, dentists, their embassy, etc. If a local school has such a set up, perhaps that could be a nice trial run or an alternative to hosting in home?

[Benzgirl]

Look very closely at the agency that is placing them with you. When I was in high school (ok, very long ago), American Field Service was the best and Youth For Understanding was next.
There were many organizations that were not very well run and one of my friends took in a student from Finland from one of them. It was a nightmare. The student drank a lot and told her host-mother that she wasn't going home at the end of the year because she was going to marry her host-brother. If I could remember the name of the agency, I would tell you.
Talk to others that have hosted students from the organization in which you are dealing

[DSTRen13]

When my siblings and I were in high school, my family did the foreign exchange student thing. THE AGENCY IS CRUCIAL, even moreso than the student herself/himself. The first time was with a French student, and the agency didn't really organize things very well so both my family and the girl were really left hanging. It wasn't a bad experience, but things were awkward, and some financial issues were not attended to. Definitely didn't get as much out of it as we could have, unfortunately. The second time was with a German student, different agency. Much better, even though the boy was crazy. There were organized activities for all the German exchange students in the area to do together with the American students, and everything was well communicated with the families. My brother then went to stay with the German boy and his family the following year as a part of the same program and loved it. (One thing to note, however - my sister was uncomfortable with the crazy German boy, who was only a year apart from her in age, staying in the house. This probably wouldn't have been an issue had he not been psychotic, but it's still something to consider if you have children of certain ages/genders.)

[carnation]

We're thinking YFU...what it was, I got a forward from the Japanese consulate here asking if anyone would be willing to host these YFU Japanese students. Several are really into sports and/or music and it does seem that an involved student would be happier.

This rep said, "Maybe your high schoolers would like to help you choose their favorites!" *No way!* Can you hear it now? The 2 boys: "Hey Mom, we want these 2 girls, they look hot." The 2 girls: "Nooooo! We want these 2 hottie Uruguayan soccer guys!"

Phoenix, we have hosted international students from the colleges where I've taught for quite awhile. It's been great but we have all this room in our house from 6 daughters going off to college in 6 years so that's why we started thinking about hosting.

[PhoenixAzul]

Originally Posted by carnation

Phoenix, we have hosted international students from the colleges where I've taught for quite awhile. It's been great but we have all this room in our house from 6 daughters going off to college in 6 years so that's why we started thinking about hosting.

Ahh gotcha .

In that case, from an international student standpoint: Thank you for being a brave soul and opening your home. It can be really lonely in another country!

[texas*princess]

I've never hosted a foreign exchange student, but I remember my sophomore yr in high school a family in my small town hosted a guy from Scotland. He was so sweet, smart & funny. And I'm not going to lie, he was pretty cute too!!!

And out of all the girls, he asked ME to prom! hehehe

We still keep in touch... but that's about all I have to contribute to this topic... lol

[NUBlue&Blue]

We've only done it for a month in the summer--twice. Once a few years ago we had a 17 year old French girl and she was great. We got her when I saw an ad in the paper that host families were needed for French students. I think the organization was LEC.

Two years ago we had two French brothers whose uncle had stayed in our neighborhood when he was a teenager. The families kept in touch for 25 years and we got them in a roundabout way. They were the same ages as our two boys and they got along okay. I'd say they were definitely harder.

We have four kids and both times we got kids who were from bigger families (the girl was the youngest of 4 and the boys were the oldest two of four). I'd say just make sure you don't get an only child with your "busy" household or it may be a little too much! I know we looked for someone from a larger family and a little older (better English skills)--there were a lot of 15 year old only children and I think they wouldn't have liked the craziness of our house.

This summer the middle two French boys are coming to visit for 2-3 weeks.

The only thing that I don't like about it is that I feel like I can't let loose and be a biotch in front of them. But I have a couple friends who've told me that when they had exchange students when they were in HS, their moms got over that after a couple of months.

[squirrely girl]

Sounds like fun!

I think you're making a great choice by hosting two students from two different countries. I hosted two students a few years ago. One girl was from Croatia and the other girl was from Brazil. I thought it worked out fabulously because they were the same age and became involved in a variety of extracurricular activities together. The total bonus was that they were both "forced" to work on their English to speak with each other. I think their English skills improved so much due to that. Near the end of the year together they started teaching each other their native languages. It was a GREAT experience.

[alum]

My high school had an exchange with specific high schools in France and Spain. About 30 kids would go to each country for a month in the beginning of 3rd quarter and then return. 2 weeks later, their hosts and hostesses would come to our Boston suburb. My sibs and I all did this.

Usually they placed same-gender but the year my sister participated, there were more American girls as compared to French girls. Our family ended up with Philippe. He was a very polite boy from what I recall. I was in college so I barely met him

[carnation]

We heard from both of them this week! They're full of questions, of course, and I'm trying to think of all kinds of random things to tell them. Any ideas about what they need to know beforehand?

We still don't know when they're coming and school starts in about 5 weeks.