What You Should Know Before Hosting an Exchange Student

Sara Fletcher has worked with exchange students for years – first as a Local Coordinator, and now as a Regional Director, where she oversees the placement and supervision of iE students in the Midwest USA, as well as several Southern states. She’s also a host mom who just welcomed her third exchange student.

But before she ever worked in student exchange, Sara was one herself. As a young adult, she studied abroad in Russia, where she lived with a host family and immersed herself in a new culture. Thanks to her wealth of firsthand experience – both as a student and a host – she understands the joys and challenges of international exchange.

Welcoming a new member into your family can feel overwhelming. Even if you’ve raised teens before, cultural differences, language barriers, and the natural adjustment period can leave you wondering what to expect.

That’s why Sara put together this quick “crash course” in hosting. Whether it’s your first year or your fortieth, we hope you’ll walk away feeling more confident and prepared for the incredible journey ahead.

Hosting 101

Sara as an exchange student.

A good place to start is by asking yourself this one question: What was your goal when you first volunteered to host – was it to learn and grow, to step out of your comfort zone? How exactly does this play out when you have a student in your home?

1. Be prepared for your student to have habits and preferences or make decisions that you do not understand. Your student will have needs that you cannot anticipate and they may not be good at communicating them to you at first. It’s very possible they may not ever be able to explain them to you in words.

2. Keep an open mind each day and watch for clues. Just watch and listen . . . try to recognize emotions and offer understanding when you can even if you barely grasp what’s going on in their head. Enjoy being an investigator of what makes your student tick. Sometimes you may just need to sit down and have a conversation with them to understand each other better.

This is all part of the cultural exchange process. The more we learn to understand each other, the better we get along and the more fun we can have. It’s a lot easier to have a fun day floating down the river together as a family when you’ve cleared up the confusion over why your student overslept and made everyone late to meet the river guide – she stayed up late talking to her mom back home because she is homesick. Now that you know she’s feeling homesick, you can creatively distract her with some fun activities over the weekend, and maybe ask her to tell you about her family back home.

3. Lead with compassion. If you aren’t sure what to do – be compassionate. The student’s behavior may seem annoying to you, but try to put yourselves in the student’s shoes. It can be exhausting to constantly adapt to a new environment!

A Spanish girl at age 15 may need a lot of alone time to process her emotions because her mom isn’t there and she’s only just getting to know you. A Spanish boy may leave his wet laundry in the washing machine or forget to put trash in the trash can because his parents hired a maid in his home country. Your student may fall asleep after school and not realize you have dinner planned at 6pm, so she will miss it entirely because back home her family eats at 9pm. Your student may have a hard time waking up for school; she’s tired because she’s getting used to speaking English all day and the newness of school is still very overwhelming for her. Or your student may not think to wash their sports clothes – probably because they need to go to Walmart to stock up on deodorant but are feeling too shy to ask you to take them.

4. Be prepared to be their parent. Don’t wait for them to ask you what you need or expect from them. Set clear expectations of how you want them to behave in your home and participate in family life. Literally write all of this down, print it and give it to them. I have a few samples of “Survival Guide to Our Household” which I can share with anyone interested. Any amount of guidance you can provide, no matter how small it may seem to you, will be much appreciated by your student. If you expect them to put the shower curtain inside the shower rather than the outside, you should tell them point-blank, rather than expecting them figure these things out on their own.

5. Never assume your student knows how to do something that you find mundane or routine. They’re coming here from the comfort of their own homes, and it probably feels like everything is different. Many of them do not know how to operate a vacuum cleaner or microwave. Think about how you might feel arriving to a town in the arctic circle – you would need locals to teach you how to dress for very cold temperatures and how to operate a skidoo. Put yourself in your student’s shoes and be as thorough and repetitive as you need to be to help your student acclimate.

Do you remember being a teenager? Regardless of where your student is from, there are some common “teenager” behaviors that transcend all cultures.

• Your student probably will not pick up on unspoken communication.
• Be prepared to over-explain.
• Be prepared to remind them multiple times of things you’ve already told them.
• Be prepared to invite them more than once to do something with you.”