<p>I know others who have done this and it works out fine. I think you should go for it! What a wonderful gift to give someone! She will always remember you, decades down the line, as the person who made a huge difference in her life.</p>
<p>OP - My in-laws took in an exchange student for a year. It worked out so well that the student became a long-term friend of the family, visiting regularly from her home abroad.</p>
<p>As to your questions, I suggest researching a few Web Sites on being a Host Family for an exchange student. This may help refine your thinking a bit. Here is one such site (of many I found): [Become</a> a Host Family in Our Foreign Student Exchange Program - ICES | International Cultural Exchange Services](<a href=“Host an International High School Exchange Student | ICES USA”>http://www.icesusa.org/host-families/?gclid=CMX4qbqG37gCFSLxOgodBQYAVQ)</p>
<p>If you do this, please make sure
(1) that your school district will permit a student whose parent leaves the area can continue to attend - many districts don’t anymore.
(2) that you have all the appropriate legal forms & authorizations from the father so that you can see her grades, talk to her teachers without violating FERPA, get her medical treatment while keeping the father responsible for any costs not paid by his insurance.</p>
<p>Otherwise, what you are considering is a lovely thing.</p>
<p>My parents took in my sister’s best friend when they were rising seniors when the friend’s father was suddenly transferred out of state. The two sets of parents worked out a contract that involved payment to my parents, permissions for my parents to get her medical treatment, and rules of the house. The girls shared a room.</p>
<p>The two were already inseparable, so no, there was no problem with togetherness. Amazingly, even though my parents did not have all same-sex children, there was no problem with this girl and the males in our household. She didn’t have her own car, but my parents had insurance that covered drivers of our cars even if they were not family. But it was a time and place where not all kid had cars, nor expected them.</p>
<p>Things went well. The two are still friends decades later, and the friend ended up meeting and later marrying a friend of my sister’s BF at the time.They applied to entirely different colleges and live 2,000 miles apart but have always been close.</p>
<p>The biggest issue I see for you is that the dad sounds so hands-off that you might not get the funds from him that he agrees to, if you want regular support payments. If you can live with that, I say go for it. My parents’ house was getting emptier and emptier as we left for college and life on our own and having more kids in the house again made them happy.</p>
<p>
I don’t believe that would be the case. You could insure your cars and not allow your kids to drive them and not list them on your policy. On the other hand, whether they are listed on your policy or not, if they get into an accident while driving your car then you would still be covered and be liable. It is the case if let people borrow your car, even if they are not listed on your policy, your insurance would still pay out if there is an accident and you would be liable for anything which is not covered by insurance. In the OP’s case, I wouldn’t allow this young lady to drive your car because OP would be the deep pocket if there is any major accident (like death).</p>
<p>I’ve been on the other side of it. My daughter spent the last year of high school staying with friends. They treated her like family. Didn’t charge rent that I know of but had her do chores and gave her a curfew - she had the same rules as their children. I think relationships were damaged but that was more a result of her mental illness than anything else. All I can say is that I am grateful for those that took her in and took care of her when I could not.</p>
<p>We offered to do this for a friend of my son’s, but the dad, who had left his wife for another woman, nixed the idea. I think he was just being spiteful - he didn’t want to make things easier for his soon-to-be ex-wife. The young man barely graduated from high school and is still struggling. Makes me sad. I think we could have made a big difference for him.</p>
<p>Maybe I missed it in posts. Have you talked to your son? How does he feel about her living at your house for a year? Did he come to you with this idea gor her to move in or is this something you came up with?
While the idea sounds good perhaps he may prefer she lives with the neighbor.</p>
<p>My mom was fortunate to have someone take her in when she was younger. It changed her world and to this day she always tells us she would not have today if it wasn’t for the family that took her in. </p>
<p>My mom came from a poor village where there were no schools (Asian country). The woman who took her in was an aunt who lived in a larger city where there is schooling, resources, etc. She was not wealthy but she was kind, soft spoken and caring. There was another aunt from another family who was wealthy where my mom worked as a maid after school. This aunt was mean and stingy. My mom worked hard, married and was able to build a successful business with my father. </p>
<p>Now many years later, my mom is now a grand mother but still remembers the kindness of this aunt and has paid it forward by helping others out, giving room and board to struggling families. The mean aunt is now old and alone. She is not well-liked by many, not even her own children. She often spends her days alone fending for herself (wheel chair bound). My mom is one of the very few who goes and visits, brings food and checks up on her. Very sad.</p>
<p>What goes around comes around.</p>
<p>Just want to say I didn’t become anybody’s “mom” (maybe a second at times! Gave enough advice!) or legal guardian. When D’s friend stayed with us we already knew insurance, etc was taken care of. Basically, she lived with us with her parents blessing. We were a safe oasis over a long period. We were stable when her family was going through turmoil and having troubles. She had (and has) loving parents–it was just difficult for them to juggle life and we were able to help. And we’re very glad for the experience.</p>
<p>my H’s family had a semi-live-with-them young man like what gouf describes. He was H’s sister’s best friend, and well-liked by all the sibs and H’s mom. His own family was large and lived in a very small home and there were health issues they were dealing with. So he lived at H’s house off and on through HS.</p>
<p>Still a very dear friend–my kids think of him as an uncle and D was thrilled he was able to come to her wedding–he lives overseas but it just worked out he could piggyback it onto a conference. We don’t get to see him much but he is such an important part of our family!</p>
<p>Liking all the positive outcomes! To answer MichiganGeorgia’s post #28, son mentioned a few weeks ago that friend’s dad was looking to move out of state, and that friend planned to stay put. I asked son where she was planning on staying, and he said she had a couple options, including staying with us! He just assumed that of course we would take her in :). Honestly, she and son are so close that my heart would break for him if he lost his bestie to a move, and taking her in would be as much for DS as for his friend.</p>
<p>There will be no financial compensation to us, and I have no problem with that, although I will probably throw a couple chores her way. Until her dad actually finds a job, this is just me working through the what-ifs. The more I learn about her home life, the more I hope it happens.</p>
<p>Good Luck and sounds fine westcmom.
Made me think to email our D’s friend who we had with us many a time and holiday due to her family problems. She was so shocked that we did the same for her as we did for our own kids, esp. at the holidays. I was always so surprised that she expected anything different because it was just the right and fun thing to do and have never been sorry.</p>
<p>My middle son has some friends who’ve had some major problems in life. We let two of them stay at our place from 3 to 6 months. One of them is totally estranged from his parents (issues going both ways it seems). The other one was pretty much lazy and undirected. I feel good about helping the first young man. He yearns for family, and my wife mothered him up pretty well. He was a big help around the house, helping with landscaping etc. That was a couple of years ago and he still stops and sees me at my shop on occasion too. We asked the second one to leave after a few months, because he rarely worked and didn’t seem like he had a plan for advancing himself. </p>
<p>I think one needs to make a decision based on the characteristics of the individual. If either of the guys seemed dangerous in any way, or likely to steal from us etc. I wouldn’t have helped them out.</p>
<p>Extending a little kindness is a good thing, right?</p>
<p>When you open your heart, it’s a good thing. You’re not describing a troubled kid, but one you already like.</p>
<p>We had a bad experience with an exchange student, but would take in a friend in a flash, if the alternative were to leave him or her at a major disadvantage. I suspect I will one day have my nephew living with us, for some period.</p>
<p>Our own kids aren’t perfect, they offer challenges. You’ll deal with whatever comes up. The advance planning is good. That includes letting them know house rules, expectations and that you will react as a parent (ie, no lesser rules for the “new” family member.) I wouldn’t charge rent, but would definitely add the friend’s name to the list of weekly and daily chores. (I do this with friends who visit, too.) Some of all this is a roof over a kid’s head. But the “heart” is in how you welcome them, just add them to the fold, and fill in any needed blanks.</p>
<p>By no means am I saying not to do it. But having foreign exchange students several times I felt like I was always “on”. Will you feel like you can sit in your jammies and veg out in front of her? Have a squabble with your spouse in front of her? Being responsible for someone else means your son will have to share your attention, he’ll have to be on his best behavior all the time, and will he feel like he always has to include her on things he does? Will he get your attention to deal with the college apps? Will you feel like you will miss giving him his last year of parenting time? I know my kids liked our exchange students, but were glad to see them go and have chosen to not do it anymore.</p>
<p>Everything eyemamma pointed out is true, but one could say about us having kids too. There is a lot of downside, but there is a lot of upside too. OP needs to see if positive outweighs the negative for all parties concerned.</p>
<p>There was a doctor in my town who helped a grandmother and student out of a homeless shelter, paid for the student to go to my kid’s private school. This student ended up getting into Harvard.</p>
<p>I just recently met one of D2’s friend’s parent. They kept on talking about their older daughter - how proud they are of her for getting into a great law school and how hectic it’s going to be getting daughter #1 and #2 (D2’s friend) to school this fall. I later found out from D2 that the daughter they were referring to was adopted when she was 16. They paid for her expensive LAC and now is funding her law school. Base on my conversation with the parents, I couldn’t really detect any differences when they were talking about daughter #1 vs #2.</p>
<p>I really do admire people who could open their hearts and home to people in need.</p>
<p>My parents went overseas my senior year in high school. It was a boarding school, so there was no problem, but my best friends parents offered to let me spend weekends and Girl Scout meeting nights with them, so that I was only a five day boarder which was much, much nicer. I’ve forever been grateful, and I learned a lot from living with them. (The father was a former opera star and had a very interesting group of friends, they spoke quite a bit of French at home as the mother was French.) I think this is a wonderful gift to the girl and would go for it as long as your kids are on board which it sounds like they are. Do make sure you dot your i’s and cross your t’s as far as the school district is concerned.</p>
<p>I think bad experiences with exchange students is a different beast, since you can’t always trust the vetting institutions and sometimes good kids in their home countries have a different agenda when they are out of the house that is totally unpredictable.</p>
<p>No advice here, but lots of admiration of your willingness to help this girl!</p>
<p>This is great of you and I know that the young lady will appreciate it. By all means, give her a share of the household chores and treat her as a member of the family, since that is what she’ll be. Everyone should be absolutely clear about “house rules” and the consequences of breaking them- if that’s the way you operate.
Even though she will be 18, make sure that you have a signed, notarized letter from her dad authorizing you to sign for medical treatment should the need arise. Also, make it clear how college visits and forms are to be handled and the time frame. Her father is going to have to take care of her FAFSA form and submit financial documents to schools and his signature may be needed. Define how this will be dealt with and figure out how to get documents back and forth efficiently. And don’t forget to discuss holidays and vacations so that you know who will be where.
The best of luck to you and your family!</p>