Host Family

Two school years ago (2006-2007), we hosted a foreign exchange student from Germany. Our student turned 17 years old right shortly after he moved here, and was a junior in high school. It was obvious when he first moved in with us that he was very nervous and hesitant about coming half way around the world to live with a family he has never met. Within minutes of his arrival to our home, I showed him his room, then showed him around our house. I could tell he felt comfortable in our home and some of his nervousness would quickly go away.

The year he spent with us was full of joy, and he was nothing but a positive addition to our family. He truly became like a 3rd son to my husband and me, and an older brother to our two sons. Nik didn't have any siblings of his own, so despite the uncertainty of how he would handle two new "siblings", he quickly bonded with both of our sons (and they to him). Nik lived with us for 10 months before returning home to Germany, and we have stayed close since he left. We talk on the phone often, and this summer, he and his parents are coming to the USA and will stay with us for 8 days in July. We are all counting down the days, and cannot wait until they get here.

We hosted another exchange student this last past school year, and unfortunately, our experience was at best, dismal. The student was very opinionated, rude to the boys, and disrespectful. He was also not willing to abide by simple house rules, and lied a lot. Simply said, he was not a good fit for our very close family.

Most of the time, I feel sorry for him, because he comes from a severely broken home with an abusive (and mostly absent) father. I had really hoped he could have a positive family experience so that he could learn what feeling cared about was really like. Unfortunately, he would only rebel to an extreme, and dismiss us, when we made any attempt to show him we cared about him.

Last December, half way through our hosting experience, John and I made a very difficult decision to request the exchange program to place him in a new home. Our student moved out in December and finished his year with another family. For a long time before we made this decision, I wondered what happened. We're good, genuine people--Why did this not work? We were clear in our expectations and communication with him. He was angry that we expected him to communicate with us when he wanted something or to go somewhere, and was very secretive and lied when we found out he wasn't honest.

In the end, and a lot of processing with John and our best friends, Thom and Kelly, I believe we did everything we could. Our family just simply operates very differently than he was accustomed to, and he was not willing to work with our customs. He didn't like them, was verbally against how "Americans" did things, and was not about to adapt to fit into our family.

I truly do hope his year went better for him after he left our house and I expect it did. It was the home of a female friend of his and her mom, and from what he had told us before he moved there, their home had little supervision and few, if any, house rules. According to him, her daughter didn't have to tell her mom anything, or even let her know where she was going when she left the house if she didn't want to. This is in direct contrast to the expectations we have in our family.

Despite that most recent experience being far from ideal, we were asked to host a student through my Rotary Club. I was really surprised when my husband and kids were very willing to try hosting again because of how hurt they were from our last student's actions.

But, this coming August, we agreed to host a female exchange student for three months from Belgium. Justine is 18 and very active in Girl Scouts, so we hope she is more mature and that she is more committed to family. She seems to come from a strong family background, and at least in her profile, she seems committed to them. It will be a new experience for all of us to have another female in our house (besides me), since I've never lived with a young female. I am very hopeful this experience will go better than last time, and we can form a strong relationship, where she will accept us as her host "family", and form close, strong bonds with us.

As we learned from Nik, those bonds have run deep and definitely strong throughout our family. I am sure we will stay close throughout our lives.