Exchange Students change Host Families' lives, and vice versa.

It is well known that an exchange year changes students' lives, but what sometimes we fail to acknowledge is that the host families' lives also change.

Hosting a Stranger.

Every time I see that the students complain about their host families I get annoyed because most of the times they do not make an effort to make things work. Think for a second and prove that you are more mature than what you show: host families welcome strangers into their homes, just like these family members are strangers to you student. It is the same situation. Maybe they do not know how to approach a teenager from another country, you are the one who moved abroad to learn the local culture, therefore you are the one who should show interest in connecting with the family. Do not complain right away just because you feel like you are not treated well. Observe how host parents treat their own sons and then compare their behavior with the one they have when they deal with you. If you feel like you tried everything and still did not connect then you have all the reasons to "complain" and do something about it. I just want to highlight the fact that it is not just hard for the student. This is an experience for everyone involved.

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Once the two have connected

There is nothing more beautiful than establishing a connection with the family who's hosting you. Your "host" family becomes just family and you feel like part of it. Show them that it is important for you to bond. If you are having a drink, pour one for your host parents too, even if they did not ask for one. They will take it as a sign of attention. When I was abroad I slowly stopped calling my host parents by name, I simply called them mom and dad, because they were taking good care of me just like my biological parents would. Your host parents will feel appreciated and will remember you forever as the kid who changed their lives. Prior to your arrival maybe they just thought of hosting a foreign exchange student so that they could spend time with their sons or because they wanted to give it a try. Your job as a student is to give them a thousand reasons to keep hosting exchange students after you. When it was almost time for me to fly back to Italy, my American dad told me that he wanted to stop hosting because seeing me leave was too hard for him to handle. He wanted me to stay. I felt loved, which was good, but I also encouraged him to keep hosting because I was the seventeenth exchange student they had and this means just one thing: they enjoy hosting. I did not want to be the reason why they stopped doing it.

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If they did it for years and years it just means that they enjoy doing it. They are the kindest people I have ever met and I wanted them to keep hosting just so that everyone else after me could have the beautiful opportunity to get to know them.

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I know that sometimes families are not great, I saw that some of my friends did not connect with the family simply because they were not good people and I feel sad for them. This is not how the experience should be for both the student and the family. One of my friends was treated like the housekeeper. One thing is being helpful and give a hand to your host family, another thing is to do everything they tell order you to do. If your family is not treating well in that sense I encourage you to talk to your counselor/organization /whoever you have been assigned to. Do not fear the person just because he or she is a part of the company if you do not give it a try you will never know if you will get any help. You invested money in this so it is your right to get help if the service you are receiving is not the one you were promised at the beginning.

Cristian

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