From my junior high through college years, my parents hosted several exchange students. As a result, we have friends from Australia, France, Colombia, Italy, Russia, Brasil, and Spain.
Coming from such awesome culinary countries as France and China, hopefully these kids can cook and/or teach you how to cook some “real” dishes from those places.
I went to a Catholic mass in China on Easter Sunday, in a Catholic church. It was a little different than what I’m used to, seemed to run in a loop with people coming and going (we stayed about an hour, until it seemed like we’d been through that part already). No government involved.
I’d have been very disturbed if my host family (in a very Catholic country) expected me to go to church with them. They simply said when they go and that I was welcome to go or not.
My family hosted a kid with the Experiment In International Living for six weeks. The connection was so strong that he returned four months later (with his family’s blessing), finished high school with us, and went to college continuing to live with us. He moved away for graduate school, but married one of my second cousins.
Separately – but while he was living with us – I spent an academic year in Barcelona, living with a family.
We have never hosted exchange kids, but we did have European au pairs for 6 years. We are still close to some of them via Facebook, and one of them is coming to visit us in September with her husband.
My advice: Be clear on rules (but try to limit the number of rules). Especially in the early days, recognize how scary the experience is for them, and how difficult the constant bombardment with American English and the strange food may be. Include them in things you do – especially things that may be fun – and get to know them so you have some idea of what they may like. And of course give them some space, too. They’re teenagers.
“To be clear, I didn’t mean explaining religious tenets, but pointing out roles churches and temples play in American society, which would e very different in their culture.”
You want them to like America, not hate it.
I’m glad Consolation said what she said; I was about to, and deleted it. Offer them to come along, but handing them Bibles (etc) is over the top.
One of the “house rules” might be stipulating computer time, much as you would your own teenagers. A few unsuccessful hosting situations I know of were related to the student spending all their time on line. I can understand the gravitation to that - homesick, feeling uncomfortable interacting in a language they might not be too good at - but it was damaging to the bond between student and host family and to the student maximizing the experience.
On a lighter note, when I was an exchange student in France (in high school), one of the things that was drilled into us was that hot water was very expensive in France, so we were to take showers as cold as we could manage, and make them extremely short - jump in and out. I don’t know if it’s still that way, but if it is, you can tell the Frenchie it’s ok to bathe every day
We just picked up our French student, who speaks almost no English. On the way home, we stopped by a market to let her choose some food items. Sure enough, she likes white bread and Lucky Charms! It will be fun when we get the Asian student on FRI. Curious to see if she likes the same type of foods! My husband know French, a good thing!
I had 7 au pairs, from various countries. My German au pair spoke so little English when we picked her up. In 4 months, her English was just so good! No surprise, she is now in her 40’s, a phd researcher in a scientific field. I am fortunately FB friends with 3 sitters, and one came to visit. I had some bad apples, but a few good ones.
Actually, I found out from our Swiss student that the organization with which he came–Youth for Understanding–gave them pamphlets warning them that Americans were very picky about bathing frequently and use of deoderant, LOL. As a Swiss, he was equally or more so!
@CTTC- The first month was a month of getting to know her and everyone was on their best behavior. The second month was ok for me but rocky for my oldest. However, my oldest never said anything and so I was unaware of the tension that was developing. The third month was stressful but you could see the end in sight. I didn’t know how really stressed my kids were until afterwards. We did have some good times and I made sure to give this girl some experiences. We took her places. She saw some national treasures. I even took her to several colleges for visits as she thought she might like to go to school in the states. I know a lot of the stress came from the interaction between teenagers suddenly living together. I think a shorter time period would have been easier.
In my social circle there were people who had nannies, but they tended to be from south and central america, and older ladies.
Our extended family has had exchange students, and one of them (from norway, iirc) ended up never leaving my aunt and uncle loved him so much he ended up becoming part of the family. I think he eventually went back home, but he stayed for years and years and years.
I’m fascinated by @fauxmaven 's story and can’t wait to hear how the french girl and the chinese girl get along with each other and with you. I’m laughing already about the lucky charms and white bread!
I think it’s really cool you’re hosting.
All French teens I know who went to the US return loving the country and don’t have kind enough and enthusiastic enough words about their hosts.
My Asian girl arrived tonight. She has almost no English. Tonite we chatted in Google translate for about an hour. Her first question was “When can I buy a phone?” When we go to NYC?" When I asked what she wanted to take for lunch, she said roast chicken and Coke-every day. I can only talk with Google. Meanwhile our French girl went on a sleepover tonite with 2 other French girls. Our girl looked like a terrified deer in the headlights- terrified! She didn’t seem connected to the other Asian girls.
