SOPHIEDEPARIS

Hello , I'm a French mum looking for a host family for my son this coming summer.He's 14years old ,(will turn 15 in August) , and has learned English at school for 5 years now.So he's not fluent at all , but can manage.I'm an airline staff member , and would love to find a family , possibly with teenagers able to take good care of him for a week up to 10 days, starting at the end of July (he goes to Summer Camp in July , 4th up to the 29th). Any big city mentionned in the message title would be great ! If you've heard of any association I could turn to , please do!We are supposed to go to our little nice typical place in Brittany after that , (sun and rain , very mild weather , sea , watersports , tennis, very French vilage), where we could of course host a teenager ourselves !
Thanks for everyone 's help!
ps:my son loves sports and lousy singers , a non smoking home would be the best , as well as an almost none French speaking household! I'd love him to improve his English.

northeast

This a joke right? If not you're nuts.

SOPHIEDEPARIS

thank you for your quite-excuse me-obnoxious response.
How do you think or expect foreigners to learn English?At school only?I've heard of either family or other type of associations dealing with hosting youngsters , and as American ones , from my point of view are most certainly more controlled then everywhere else , that's why I sent my request to Fodor's.
I'm looking for serious suggestions and not a moral personal and hardly understandable answer.Thank you

cd

Sophie
What the above poster means is that it's pretty much unbelievable that a Mom would advertise on a public travel forum for accomodations for her 14yr old son. In a world today when it's hard to trust your next door neighbor why in the world would you trust a stranger?
Also, next time in your heading, put spaces instead of slash marks. When there are no spaces in your heading it screws up the whole left column.

Gardyloo

Sophie, three suggestions.

First, re-post your request using a better title - "Seeking exchange host for teenaged son" or something. Otherwise nobody knows by looking at the title what you want.

Second, all capital letters is regarded as SHOUTING. Please don't shout.

Third, you must place spaces between words in your title or else the Fodor's web page becomes very difficult to read, and many people (myself included) become very annoyed.

I am sure you will get some better (and less irritating) answers to your questions if you follow these simple courtesies on the Fodors site.

By submitting this message I am bringing your post up to the top of the column, so the "format" problem I mentioned will now last longer. To other readers of this post, I am sorry, but I recommend that other posts with advice for Sophie wait until she can re-submit the question with a better header.

And Sophie, I hope you understand this is not intended to scold you, just inform you. Good luck with your plans.

SOPHIEDEPARIS

sorry for shouting and being so rude and stupid...of course I didn't realise I 'm on a public forum(it's my first time on one)I just intended to do my best to help my son have a great summer holidays.
thanks to everyone that answered.

nytraveler

Assuming this is not a troll - I can;t imagine that you would expect any family to take on the responabiity for a random teenager wirthout the support of one of the usual student exchange programs. There are massive personal and legal liabilities involoved - beleive me - no one in their right mind will do this.

If you reallythave a son and really want to find a program you need to do it through his school - or some French national student exchange program- which will provide the support and insurance (legal and literal) needed.

northeast

CD: that was the purpose of my response. PS I don''t believe she/he is a french mum. Where's Patrick? Oh on the GTG ,in South Florida. I hope you folks have a great time.
PS Scarlett , have a great time. What's the weather like in Jacksonville today.
Patrrick, come back soon

lcuy

I think she used slash marks because slash is what comes to mind when you think of what could happen to a 14 yr old boy placed with strangers found on an internet site.

Sophie, check with your son's school or the American Friends Society for an organized exchange program. Either that or ask among your friends if they have American friends or references.

It isn't just your son at risk either. We've hosted lots of exchange students and friends kids, but I wouldn't take a stranger into my home.

SAB

Calm down folks, she is asking if anyone knows of an association that places exchange students, not asking you to take in her son.

beachbum

If you'd include Portland, Oregon as a possible choice, I'm sure my soon to be 13 year-old daughter could get pretty excited about this!

Orcas

STOP RESPONDING TO THIS SO IT CAN DROP DOWN AND THE MARGINS FOR THIS COLUMN CAN BE RESTORED!!!

lcuy

I just emailed the editors. If they can delete our oregon posts, surely they can add some spaces to this title.

HC8454892

Sorry you've been treated so rudely. I've no experience in this but here's a program I have heard of.

http://www.afs-fr.org/indexaa.asp

tml

Don't post on here any more. I am just posting here this once so she will know where to find the rest of her topic. If you want to help Sophie so she doesnt think Americans are all rude post some good answers on this new discussion--
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...1&tid=34579065

seetheworld

Thanks a bunch. You didn't even give anyone a chance to post. Now I regret helping.

rb_travelerxATyahoo

Instead of complaining about this thread & topping things just to top them, try using this link:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgTopics.jsp?fid=1

When you see a topic you'd normally click on, do a right click followed by "open in a new window"

What's the big problem anyway? Nothing that can't be ignored.