Bad Experience with a Foreign Exchange Student??

A friend of mine hosted a student. A student that came from a LOT of money. He hated them, their house, the school--EVERYTHING.

After six months he settled in and was fine. Now years later they still keep in touch and he has come back to visit them.

I think he was just SO out of his comfort zone he just lashed out at them.

Some may not like this answer, especially AL., but having an exchange student, I would think, is difficult and takes adjustment. I don't think a 15 year old who wets the bed should have qualified to even have been an exchange student in the first place. That really isn't fair to the family he's living with. If his parents know he wets the bed, they should have been up-front about it.

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Wow, that is so sad. We had a 15 year old foreign exchange student a few years ago. At the time I considered it a bad experience, but this answer is going to be very complicated. First, we decided to participate in the program on the spur of the moment because we were told there were 60 kids who needed homes for the year. My heart went out to them, so we took in this student even though we really didn't have room. My boys were 4 and 10 at the time, and we moved them into the same bedroom for the year. We put our exchange student in our 4 year old's room.

The problems we had were that our house really isn't large enough for 5 people. He was with us for 11 months, and it was cramped. Also, he was 15, and he wasn't raised in our family. He wasn't used to having to put away his things (we're neat freaks). He was also HUGE, and he didn't consider there were 4 other people that needed space to sit also. He was 6 feet tall at 15 years old, and he would stretch out across the couch leaving no room for anyone else. Little things like that built up and caused major resentment over time because he never changed his behavior. He also picked on my 4 year old constantly. My boys get along well, so this drove me nuts. I mean, he's 15. Leave the 4 year old alone if you can't be nice! It was his way of playing, but my son hated it.

Cost was a major issue too. I had no idea how much it cost to feed a growing boy. This was a good lesson to learn since I have two boys of my own, but we weren't prepared for the cost of feeding a foreign exchange student. Also, if we were going to have him in our home, we were going to treat him like family. That meant gifts for him every time we got gifts for our boys. That added up to a ton of money. We also paid for movie tickets, dinner out, etc. It was extremely expensive.

He was a very happy boy, though, and we learned a ton about each other's cultures. He ended up calling me "Mom," and we all ended up loving each other. He tells me he loves me and misses me every time we talk. It was very challenging, and I don't want to do it again unless we move into a larger home, but now I treasure my relationship with my "German son." We are very close still. We email and skype, and my boys still talk about him all the time. He asks my husband and I for advice (he's in college now, and just started his first real job). I often email his mom, too.

So, although it was challenging, it was rewarding, too. I love him, and we're making plans to see him next summer. I hope things work out for your friend, and I agree with you. Your friend should try to work it out. It's a huge step to travel to a foreign country, and maybe 15 is too young, but now that he's here, perhaps your friend could work with him a bit longer to help him with school and adjusting.

I'm sorry this got so long. I hope it helps.

WOW, sending a kid back because he wets the bed.. that's big of them........so what "they were not informed".. maybe he didn't wet the bed until he got to their house..... maybe they aren't that friendly.. maybe he doesn't feel welcome at their house..

It's only been about a month... he is adjusting.. sounds like your friends don't have a lot of patience and maybe they aren't the type to host an exchange student.. if they have such little tolerance for minor things such as bed wetting.. I well imagine the kid is more embarrassed than anything..

I was an exhange student when i was 18..........IT WAS VERY STRESSFUL in the begining. I almost got sent back because i developed anorexia due to stress and almost died. Please encourage your friend to help the guy out.

We hosted a child from Germany two years ago.
In one month she was only just starting to "think" in English. Her first math grades were all terrible because she didn't know certain terms, circumference, parabola, perimeter, inch, feet, squared. Most were things our kids know from 2nd grade. Story problems were awful and sent her into a panic.
She spent a week crying herself to sleep, she was so homesick.
She spent 6 weeks taking cold showers because she was afraid to tell me she didn't know how to make hot water. She was so embarrassed.
It was stressful but we made it work.
I had her stay after school with the math teacher.
I gave her a German/English dictionary
I made German food. She called home every other Sunday.

He should do his own sheets. Have his family buy a new mattress if need be.
Make sure he has some friends. Get him involved with the high school, does he play an instrument? a sport?
Call the organization he came with. Make them aware of the situation.

He still can't think American yet. He is embarrassed, alone, and probably pretty depressed right now.
If your friend wants to make this work she has to have the mindset that this is her German son. She has to do everything in her power for him before she quits on him.
IMagine being 15 and sent to a foreign country where you know noone.

My mom was an exchange student when she was around 15, she went to Mexico. The family she lived with was very strict and she had a hard time keeping up with all their rules. She was yelled at and sent to her "sisters" room with no dinner on occasion. She liked parts of the experience but overall she would not have done it again which is why she partly discouraged her kids (me) in wanting to become one.

Recently, my babysitters family took in an exchange student from Spain. The agency who sent her made it very clear that they were in no way to introduce her to their religion or they would bring her right back to Spain. We all thought that was strange that that was the biggest "no no" about having her come stay. They weren't inviting her to stay to convert her, LOL!! They've only had this girl in their home for about 2 weeks so I know things are so far so good. Hopefully it'll be a successful experience.

I have never had an experience with this but Maggies advice seems pretty right on. Give him time, there are lots of people that wet the bed due to the trama of change and that could be the case with him. His school work is probably secondary due to the fact that our school is probably way different than whrere he is from. He needs time and understanding to adjust, Good luck to your friend.

I had a great experience with our exchange student -- she's now like my other daughter.

I did find that some host parents weren't very understanding with their exchange students, they kind of sucked as host families, actually, and some of the host families were outright nutcases, so the exchange students ended up at my house a lot.

It was expensive, and a lot of work, but completely worth it.

You don't say how long he is supposed to live with your friend -- the programs can range from weeks to a year -- but I think they should keep him. IMO, his grades are his business. Some of the exchange students I met weren't great students, but they and their host families still benefited from the experience.

It doesn't sound like your friend is very understanding, so I'm not sure how our opinions are going to change anything.

We did from China. She was a lazy, f student, partying, alchoholic druggie who broke house rules as well as the program rules, could barely even speak her own language. My dad spoke her language better than she did. Apparently her parents were very wealthy and bought her into the program to get rid of her in America, when she should not have been a candidate in the first place. She was sent back after about 2 months.

As for this family's child, he is old enough to wash his own sheets and have a mattress protector over the bed. Perhaps he is having language difficulties or is homesick and stressed out and that is why his homework is failing. Maybe the family he is staying with isn't all that great to him. I would take him to the Dr for the bed wetting and give him more time. We had an exchange student in my school (he wasn't with our family) from Germany and he was awesome, we still facebook each other and that was 10 years ago.

Culture shock can be HUGE!
And the first time being away from everyone you know can just shake you to your core.
A friend of mine in high school went to Japan for a year.
He was 17 at the time.
He almost had a nervous breakdown.
It took him 3 months to pull himself together, and the other 9 months were the best time he had in his life.
To this day he writes and occasionally visits his host family.
I think the 15 yr old needs more time and he needs a counselor to talk to.
It might be that he really needs to go home before the finish of the program, but one month is not enough to make an adjustment.

Our experience with an exchange student from Germany was horrible! He ruined our plumbing, ignored us and finally told us he wanted to leave (after three weeks). I was one of the people who placed exchange students, so when he left my house, he became one of my students. He moved in with a teacher, who got irritated with him because he caused the same issues there and worse. I ended up leaving the program because it was bad. They never fully interviewed the students. They would lie to the students and to the families.

It just wasn't good.

Now, there were several families that had great experiences and their student did as well, but then there are the bad ones that have issues the whole time. We were one that had issues the whole time and had the exchange student move out.

I thought you'd say he was doing drugs or something. I think that if those are the only issues, then they may be premature, but if those are the tip of the iceburg....

Did they speak to his family and/or the coordinator before sending him back?

We hosted a Japanese student once, but for just about 10 days. Our school has an exchange program with a sister school in Japan, so it's not a year long thing. I can tell you that even though we enjoyed it, it was stressful and it taught me I didn't want to do it for an entire school year.
Just having another body in the house and being responsible for a non-relative just added a level of stress.
He spoke little english which made communication difficult. *Although, funny story about that. My DH is a smart man. Well educated and has good common sense. But within the first day or so our son finally said, "Dad, he's not deaf. He just doesn't speak English." We all laughed!
Because they were just here for a short period of time, they really did not have a chance to get their time zones straight. *We've been to Japan ourselves and it took a good week to get back to 'normal' when we got back. So he was in our guest room which was right above our master bedroom and was up most of the night.
He was a trooper though. We took him to a football game, fed him BBQ, among other things in the short time.

Our daughter did a very short home-stay, just a couple of nights, when she went to Australia with a leadership group. The host family completely ignored her. Ate dinner, sat in front of the TV then the next day everyone went to work or school so she had to go to like a 'teen center' during the day.

So overall, no majorly horrible experiences in our family. But certainly not the most warming either.

If the bed wetting is resolved, maybe it would be worthwhile to get to the bottom of why he does it at 15. Is there an emotional problem that deflates his self esteem? Is he feeling like he was sent away to be someone else's problem? Is there a physical problem that is causing it and someone wants someone else to take care of it?

This kid is lacking something in his life that causes low self esteem. Thus the lack of effort. And very likely afraid someone will find out about the bed wetting. Another esteem killer.

Encourage the couple to try and help this kid. It will make the experience good for both of them, instead of "OMG! they sent us a defect!" attitude. What if it was their own child? What would they do? Maybe the agency didn't know about the bed wetting. It ISN'T something one normally goes broadcasting. So it may not have been known.

The two I knew years ago were a girl from Mexico and a boy from Sweden. They were both WILLLLLDDD and loved to party. They were both a handful with the girl living in 3 different homes and the boy actually stealing the family's car.

my boyfriends aunt had an exchange student and it didnt work out, the country that she is from it was legal for her to drink (she was around 17 i think) and so she got drunk here and wouldnt follow rules so they sent her home

wow, I'm sorry I'm not in the situation so maybe can't relate but what culture shock he must be going through. Poor kid to feel abandoned from his host family without really getting a chance. ugh.