What It's Like to Host an Exchange Kid...
When you first decide to do something like this, the agency tells you, “All you need to do is provide them their own bed, a place to study, and 3 meals a day… and treat them like your own.” Sounds easy enough, right? The good news is: most exchange kids are on their best behaviors. Their parents are spending a small fortune to let them do this - and the deepest consequence of poor behavior is to be sent home, without a refund. They take this seriously. They want to impress their families and make their own parents proud. For us, the beginning of this process was super easy. She was respectful, she kept her room cleaned, did the things asked of her, participated with our family. “We got this,” we said. Easy Peasy. But what I didn’t realize is how much of a mental and emotional toll having this girl would take on me. Taking a foreign teenager in the middle of a pandemic, while our salary was cut by 30% seemed like a GREAT idea! ...
