suec1

Have you hosted and exchange student? been an exchange student? how did it work out?

About 18 years ago we hosted a young (high school age) female exchange student for about six weeks. She just fit right in with our family and we all had such a good time that the next summer she returned to stay for about a month and travel a bit with us. Over the years my daughter (who is her age) and myself have visited several times with her family and met up on several occasions for brief city stays.

Last summer, at the request of our student, we arranged for her (much younger!) brother to stay with our relatives in another state. Even tho there were boys his age in the household, they really did not connect. Yes, the played video games together but that was about it. Whereas our student really made an effort to practice english, the brother was almost mute - I think part if it was he was quite shy. But in the end I felt badly for my sister in law who really took quite a bit of time and some expense to host this young man.

Anyways it just got me to wondering what experiences other Fodorites might have had. I believe that our very positive experience led to our beginning to travel to Europe and now my subsequent LOVE of the "old stones of Europe". The first trip we took was with my daughter's high school group to visit the country where our exchange student lived.

annhig

hi suec,

like you, I've had good and bad experiences.

my personal ones were pretty good - I was given the name of a german girl to have as a pen friend when I was learning german at school, and encouraged by my dad, [who had also learn german just before WW2 and liked it a lot] we quickly became friends and on a family holiday to Germany, we "dropped in" on her and her family. from there, we each spend time with each other's families, have been to each other's weddings, and are still in touch 40 years later.

OTOH we had a similar experience to yours with the brother when our DD had a german girl to stay. it was only for a week, but it was a very long one, as this girl was just totally uninterested in everything. she only came alive when she was with her friends at school. She already knew our DD as our lot had gone there first, and things had been fine there, but she was very unfriendly to her too on the return visit.

We never did get to the bottom of it, and it wasn't as if she couldn't understand what was going on as i speak quite reasonable german, so in the end I rather gave up. i don't know who was more relieved when she got on the bus to go home - her or me!

Certainly my trips to Germany to stay with my friend and her lovely family and her return visits to us greatly increased my love of Germany and the german language and have give our children opportunities to meet and stay with real germans, rather than just staying in hotels, which must be good.

greg

It is a mixed bag. It helps if the students want to practice English and learn about the US (in case of a European student coming to the US.) We had a girl whose parents were so pleased that she had a wonderful time with us that when we visited them they spent several days to driving us around when we visited them. The mother also gave us a cooking lesson in her kitchen. It was a kind of person to person experience not available in a commercial setup. We also had a girl who only wanted an unsupervised time from her parents and had an attitude problem all the time she stayed with us. It is a risk, and in order to have a chance at an opportunity like the one we had with the first girl, we expect ending up with ones with attitude problems; I ain't going to try anything different from what I do at home.

We have dealt with both the for profit and non-profit host family agencies. For profit agencies seem to deal with hosts who are more in for the money, and I was not impressed.

lincasanova

One of the downfalls of doing this without an organization and local rep to back up is when there IS a "problem" of attitude or otherwise, you have no one to come in to help work the situation out or remove the student from the home (if a chat with him or her and the family cannot clear up/remedy what many times are simple misunderstandings or simply disappointed expectations).

I doubt hosts are paid in any country any sum of money that would make it interesting to have a student unless they THOUGHT they would enjoy having one. When a stipend is given towards room and board, at least any family, regardless of their financial situation, feels they can participate if they meet the requirements.

lincasanova

I also meant to add that thanks to the generosity of so many families across the globe, thousands of students are able to see inside a private home and see how others live first hand. However, some need to be entertained more than others and some come with more baggage than expected.

But it can still be a very rewarding experience. Just be sure to have some type of protection plan for the student and the family. If you get along with the local rep, I trust you will be happy with the solutions offered to any bump in the road you encounter.

As proven above, the friendships can be everlasting, which for me, is the main reason for giving it a try, along with helping out another parent looking for a personally enriching experience for his/her child in a foreign country.

chapla

A few years ago,I helped to find families for 5 students from Spain.One brother asked to be switched to the family where his brother was staying! Two just wanted to go shopping all the time!The last one was great and wanted to learn/speak English. The families formed and maintained to this day, a great friendship!
One out of five............!