Hosting Foreign Students: A World of Opportunities and Responsibilities

Hosting foreign students presents a unique opportunity for cultural exchange and personal growth, both for the host family and the student. It's a chance to open your home and heart to someone from another country, creating lasting memories and fostering a more interconnected world. However, it also comes with responsibilities that need to be understood and embraced.

The Benefits of Hosting

Cultural Enrichment and Global Understanding

One of the most significant advantages of hosting is the chance to immerse oneself in a new culture without leaving home. Host families learn about different traditions, customs, and perspectives, broadening their horizons and fostering invaluable intercultural understanding and appreciation. Sharing meals, celebrating holidays, and engaging in everyday activities become opportunities to learn and connect with someone from a different background.

By welcoming a student from another country, you're immersing yourself in a new cultural experience that fits into everyday life. You and your family will learn all about your host teen’s country through trying their favorite foods from home, celebrating their holidays, and getting to know them and their culture firsthand.

Building Lifelong Connections

Hosting an exchange student often leads to the creation of strong bonds that transcend borders. Many host families stay in touch with their former students for years, sharing life updates, milestones, and experiences. These relationships can evolve into lifelong friendships, with some families even visiting their former students in their home countries.

Personal Growth and Development

Hosting can be a transformative experience that fosters personal growth and development for all involved. It encourages patience, compassion, and flexibility, as families navigate cultural differences and adapt to new routines. Children in host families learn to appreciate multiple perspectives and develop a passion for understanding the world beyond their own borders.

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Community Engagement

Hosting an international student deepens your connection to your local school and community. Students attend nearby high schools, participate in extracurricular activities, and often volunteer or get involved in local events. Your child’s school gains an international presence that can enhance classroom discussions and school culture, and local sports teams, clubs, and host family events offer new ways to get involved and meet people.

Expanded Worldview

Hosting an international student is a great option to gain an expanded worldview for you and your children. Just as or even more valuable than these conversations about culture or tradition is the experience of living day in and day out with a person from another culture. Most of us don’t realize just how many of our behaviors are culturally conditioned because it’s our “normal.” But when there is another person in the home living their own kind of “normal,” the differences become obvious very quickly. While dealing with the differences in how you and your student live can be challenging to work through, they are also eye opening and a great opportunity for teaching moments for you and your family. You all get to learn together that there are other ways of going about things, and these differences aren’t necessarily negative, just different!

Seeing Your Environs with New Eyes

For a family that chooses to host a student, you have the opportunity to see your environs with new eyes. Typically, these kinds of sightseeing adventures and excursions are the biggest highlights for students and host families. It’s a golden opportunity for memories to be made and bonds to deepen through shared experiences. Some host families have an itinerary of favorite or iconic places to take their students, but even if they’ve been to those places themselves many times, it’s still fun and exciting to introduce those beloved places to someone who’s never experienced them before. Other times, host families will choose a completely new place to explore with their student, so everyone is discovering something new yet doing it together. Your student will contribute to this fun process as well. He or she may research a place they want to visit or hear about a restaurant or destination from a friend.

Growing Your Network of Personal International Connections

After welcoming a student into your home, you’ll be growing your network of personal international connections. These connections often bear fruit in unexpected and exciting ways into the future, long after the homestay experience has ended for you and your student. Maybe five years from now you’ll decide to travel to your former student’s native country. You now have a personal contact in-country who might be able to help with translating, local recommendations, and maybe even a free place to stay! Or maybe a friend of yours is relocating for work to the same city where your student is from. In the moment, there’s just no telling how the lifelong relationships you forge through hosting will influence and benefit you into the future, but the truth is it almost always does in some way or another.

The Responsibilities of Hosting

Providing a Safe and Supportive Environment

Host families are responsible for providing a safe, welcoming, and supportive environment for international students. This includes offering a private bedroom with a traditional bed, a designated study area, and access to basic amenities. The goal is to create a comfortable space that feels like home, where the student can feel secure and supported.

Emotional Support and Guidance

International students are often far from their own families and may experience homesickness, culture shock, and other challenges. Host families play a vital role in providing emotional support and guidance, helping students navigate these difficulties and adjust to life in a new country.

As a host family, you get to be a student’s first line of help and guidance, nurturing and encouraging your student in their new experience. You have the opportunity to encourage your student in their studies, helping them achieve the educational goals they set out to accomplish. You can also be the gentle push they need to step out of their comfort zones and meet new people, to join a club or team to get more involved at their school, or to engage more with your family to make the most of their experience.

Cultural Integration

Host families are encouraged to actively engage with their hosted students and participate in cultural activities, fostering cross-cultural understanding and meaningful connections. This includes integrating the students into family routines and traditions, treating them as a cherished family member.

Financial Considerations

Host families are responsible for providing their exchange student with their meals, transportation, and a clean and safe living environment. While host families do not receive financial compensation, they need to be prepared for the additional household expenses, such as gas, water, and grocery bills.

Setting Financial Guidelines

It can be tempting to be overly generous with your student at the beginning and offer to pay for things that are their responsibility. However, this can set the wrong precedent in your student’s mind. Helping your student understand their monthly expenses and what they're responsible for will set you both up for a healthy relationship.

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Student Expenses

Students are expected to cover their personal expenses while on program. They will likely bring a credit card, debit card or pre-paid card from back home. Students may experience some challenges using their foreign cards in local retailers, so it's best that they also carry cash. When planning family activities that come with a cost, talk with your student about the expenses and ensure that they have enough in their budget to participate. We do not expect you to pay for them, so if they do not have the funds to participate, discuss lower cost options.Students are expected to cover:

Personal toiletries and cosmetics
Phone plan
Clothes
Entertainment - time with friends such as concerts, school dances, museums, entry fees, movies, coffee dates, miniature golf, etc.
Holiday gifts
Additional food costs beyond what’s provided
School and sports fees
Travel
Insurance coverage

Managing Student Finances

Students usually have little experience managing and budgeting money; your guidance will be needed and appreciated. Your student may not realize all the expenses associated with social activities and entertainment or the reoccurring expenses like a monthly cell phone plan.

Prior to their arrival and throughout the exchange, it is helpful to provide a list of monthly expenses, like their cell phone plan and toiletries, as well as any one-time fees they should be aware of such as family vacations, prom expenses, additional school fees or tickets to local events.

How to Become a Host Family

Meeting the Requirements

Most exchange programs have certain requirements that host families must meet. These typically include:

Having a stable income that can support hosting expenses.
Providing a comfortable living environment.
Embodying warmth, openness, and a willingness to embrace cultural diversity.

The Application Process

The application process usually involves completing an application form, meeting with a program representative, and undergoing a home visit. The goal is to ensure that the family is a good fit for the program and can provide a safe and supportive environment for the student.

Finding the Right Student

Exchange programs work to match students with suitable host families based on their interests, preferences, and personalities. This helps to ensure a positive and enriching experience for both the student and the family.

Support Systems for Host Families

Exchange Organizations

Exchange organizations play a crucial role in supporting host families and ensuring the success of the exchange experience. They provide resources, training, and ongoing support to both the host family and the student.

Community Representatives

Many exchange programs have community representatives who serve as a vital link between the host family and the organization. These representatives offer assistance with logistical matters, mediate any conflicts, and provide guidance whenever needed.

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