Hosting a foreign exchange student

[coolerifyoudid]

I have been considering being a host family for a foreign exchange student and was curious to see if anyone has any experience with this. Some friends of ours hosted a girl from Spain and had a great experience. I was thinking it might be a great idea to expose our daughter to another culture as well as provide a good environment for the prospective student.

Any good/bad experiences? Advice?

 

[Bret44]

Nadia...

 

[ImJustKCClone]

I've done it 3 times - a German boy, a Norwegian girl, and another German boy.

First was a bust - my kids were young (6 & 7), so we asked for a kid with younger siblings. His siblings were 14 & 15. Not much help. His primary goal was to be an airline pilot, and he wanted accentless English. He had no interest in being a part of the family, and was under the (grossly mistaken) impression that we were being paid to house him, and therefore we were his "staff".

Four years later we tried again. This one went better - and she genuinely enjoyed being with the family, and having little brothers. We lost contact after she went back home, though.

Third time's a charm. Our sons were in 8th, 11th & 12th; our import was also a senior. He was not your stereotypical German; he was extroverted and had a very goofy sense of humor. He got along well with our kids, and formed his own friendships once he got into school here. We've maintained a close relationship with him ever since; he has come back to visit a half-dozen times, and we have hooked up with him & his family several times in our overseas travels.

My advice would be to research the sponsoring group. We went with two different agencies...one was MUCH better than the other. If possible, correspond with the student before they come over. Make sure they know your expectations of the experience, and make sure they know you are NOT getting paid to feed, house & transport them. We found that having a student that already had their international drivers' license made life much easier - they were able to drive in Iowa fairly easily.

It can be a really fantastic experience or a really bad one. Most of it depends on the efforts of the parties involved.

 

[CtownCyclone]

I've known people who had great experiences with foreign exchange students. I actually was a swimming teammate of one of them and got to know him a bit. The other one, while I didn't know her, has basically treated her host family like an adopted family, with visits, gifts at Christmas, etc.

I've also known people with horrible experiences - like the kid who couldn't handle not being able to legally drink in the US. That one went back to their country of origin early.

 

[carvers4math]

A friend of mine's then husband had an affair/creepy ped thing with their foreign exchange student.

Advice: Don't do that.

 

[Bret44]

A friend of mine's then husband had an affair/creepy ped thing with their foreign exchange student.

Advice: Don't do that.

^^^See this advice??^^^

Ignore it

 

[isufbcurt]

A friend of mine's then husband had an affair/creepy ped thing with their foreign exchange student.

Advice: Don't do that.

Those crazy foreign girls!!!! It was a girl right?

 

[cowgirl836]

to piggyback a bit off of KC's input, I've noticed that several of the ones in DH's high school were hosted by families with no kids or kids of the same age. That may help with the adjustment.

 

[coolerifyoudid]

I've done it 3 times - a German boy, a Norwegian girl, and another German boy.

First was a bust - my kids were young (6 & 7), so we asked for a kid with younger siblings. His siblings were 14 & 15. Not much help. His primary goal was to be an airline pilot, and he wanted accentless English. He had no interest in being a part of the family, and was under the (grossly mistaken) impression that we were being paid to house him, and therefore we were his "staff".

Four years later we tried again. This one went better - and she genuinely enjoyed being with the family, and having little brothers. We lost contact after she went back home, though.

Third time's a charm. Our sons were in 8th, 11th & 12th; our import was also a senior. He was not your stereotypical German; he was extroverted and had a very goofy sense of humor. He got along well with our kids, and formed his own friendships once he got into school here. We've maintained a close relationship with him ever since; he has come back to visit a half-dozen times, and we have hooked up with him & his family several times in our overseas travels.

My advice would be to research the sponsoring group. We went with two different agencies...one was MUCH better than the other. If possible, correspond with the student before they come over. Make sure they know your expectations of the experience, and make sure they know you are NOT getting paid to feed, house & transport them. We found that having a student that already had their international drivers' license made life much easier - they were able to drive in Iowa fairly easily.

It can be a really fantastic experience or a really bad one. Most of it depends on the efforts of the parties involved.

It sounds like the local agency that makes the arrangements can intervene fairly quickly if the situation doesn't work out for whatever reason. We have been contemplating the pros and cons of it all. I know that it will require work on both sides.

 

[bringmagicback]

I find the whole hosting a foreign exchange student thing to be creepy. I remember in HS there were 2 families that always had foreign exchange students. One family used them as slave labor on their "organic" farm. The other family was just complete weirdo's

 

[carvers4math]

Those crazy foreign girls!!!! It was a girl right?

Yep. She was quite flirty, all were suspicious except the wife before she caught them in the act.

 

[cyrocksmypants]

A friend of mine's then husband had an affair/creepy ped thing with their foreign exchange student.

Advice: Don't do that.

Unless she's hot. Then do it.

 

[00clone]

Unless she's hot. Then do it.

And legal...I mean, just for clarification, creepers.

 

[sunnysideup]

When I was a senior in high school our family hosted a boy from Germany. He turned out to be a giant closet case. Would barely come out of his room and rarely interacted with the rest of us no matter how hard we tried. It was a pretty crappy ordeal overall.

 

[cyrocksmypants]

And legal...I mean, just for clarification, creepers.

Debatable.

 

[CyStalker]

We had three growing up, boy from Japan, boy from Norway and girl from Germany. Had a great experience from all three, family is still in touch with two of them. Two have been back to visit the states multiple times and my parents have been over to Europe to see two of them that now live there.

Success and failure probably has more to do with the personalities of both parties, but there are things to look at to help your success rate.

1. Having kids similar in age is important. In all three scenarios with our family we had same sex kids of the same age.

2. Understand that when you receive an exchange student they will know no one and will of course "cling" to your children. It takes a while for the student to make their own friends, so something to consider if you want your kids in the same class. Sometimes having your exchange student in a different grade (especially in a smaller school) will help them build their own relationships faster and not be as dependent on your children for friendships. Your own children will have more than enough time to develop their own friendship with the student.

3. Treat the student the same as your treat your children. We made it very clear that we expected the student to follow rules and participate in any family even that we expected from our own family. They truly became just another member of our family.

4. Patience is key. Remember they are children and are very far from home. They will get home sick, there will be language barriers not matter how great their English (especially slang) and there are huge cultural differences. Our family always tried to remember how we would have wanted a family to treat us or our children if the roles were reversed.

5. Lastly, no matter how great of a family you are, sometimes exchange students don't work out. This is where having a good agency to work with is key. You have to make sure that you are not "stuck" with the child if it is not working out. One of my best friends family (who is really the ideal host family) had a very bad experience with a boy from Korea. Started out great, but he ended up being very creepy and inappropriate with the girl in the family and even when he was educated about expectations and right/wrong in our society, it didn't stop.

If you and your family are the type of people that just seem to get along with the majority of people you meet then you will be a great host family IMO. If you and your family have a harder time making and maintaining relationships, this may not be the thing for you. If you choose to do it, it can be an experience of a lifetime for your family and you have the opportunity to do the same for a compete stranger.

Think about it a lot before deciding because it is a big commitment, but it can be so very rewarding. Good luck in your decision.

 

[CyStalker]

I'm not sure if agencies still do this, but back when we had students you could host a child for a year, but they also had students that would come basically for the summer (3 months). If that is still something that is done, it might be a good way to get your feet wet and try it.

 

[GTO]

This would be better if you could host hot college students...

In case Mrs. GTO sees this - totally kidding! (but not really)

 

[ribsnwhiskey]

French people stink.

 

[wartknight]

I spent a lot of time overseas staying with various host families in 1 week increments at most. I had a blast but the one thing a couple did was get together with other families that were hosting at the same time so every once in a while I had some Americans to talk to. Also some of the most fond memories were the times with families who didn't speak English and I spoke very VERY broken German and we probably had the best connection