Hosting Expectations
Host the Way You Hope Another Family Will Host Your Child
Reciprocity makes hosting personal.
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At some point in the exchange, you will trust another family to welcome your child into their home, care for them, help them navigate an unfamiliar language and culture, and make them part of everyday family life.
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In return, another family will place that same trust in you.
Hosting requires time, patience, flexibility and effort. But it also offers something pretty special: the opportunity to welcome another child into your family and, quite possibly, discover that they begin to feel like one of your own.
Welcome Them Into Your Family
Hosting is much more than providing a bed and meals.
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For several weeks or several months, another child will live as part of your household. They should be included in meals, routines, chores, activities, celebrations, outings, family conversations and time with extended family.
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Host families provide the everyday care they would expect for their own child, including appropriate supervision, transportation, meals, sleeping space and help navigating school, activities and family life.
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The goal is simple: the student should feel that they live with your family, not that they are staying with your family.
Give Them a Full Experience
Everyday family life is an important part of cultural immersion, but hosting should involve more than simply adding another child to your existing routine.
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EFI expects families to make an effort to keep students active and engaged. Encourage school activities, sports, clubs and friendships. Plan outings, cultural experiences, seasonal traditions, day trips and, some bigger adventures that allow them to experience more of your community, region and country.
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These experiences do not need to be extravagant or expensive. A family vacation can be wonderful, but so can a county fair, football game, day at the lake, holiday celebration or first snowfall.
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The best exchanges combine a rich everyday family life with plenty of opportunities to get out, participate and explore.
Support Immersion and Independence
Host families are an important part of helping students learn to function in a new language and culture.
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That means being patient when communication takes time, helping students understand through context and word associations rather than relying on translation, and giving them room to make mistakes and figure things out.
It also means helping them build a life beyond their exchange sibling. Encourage friendships, activities and relationships of their own so they gradually become comfortable participating in the wider school and community.
The goal is not simply for students to visit another country. It is for them to learn how to live there.
Provide Guidance, Not Perfection
Students arrive in a family with different rules, routines and expectations from their own. Host families need to explain how their household works, set reasonable boundaries and provide the patience and guidance another family would give their child.
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Adjustment is part of an exchange. There may be homesickness, misunderstandings, language frustrations or moments when living together requires a little extra patience.
Families are not expected to handle those challenges alone. EFI remains involved throughout the exchange, and we expect families to communicate with us early when questions or concerns arise.
Understand the Commitment
Hosting another child affects the whole household.
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Families should be prepared to provide the time, transportation, supervision, meals and ordinary expenses that come with adding another child to family life. Everyone living in the home should understand and support the exchange, and the household should be stable enough to welcome another student fully.
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You do not need a perfect home. You do not need to become a tour guide or plan something extraordinary every weekend.
You do need to be willing to make room in your home, your schedule and your family life for another child.
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And there is a wonderful bonus to doing that well.
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The student who arrives as your child's exchange partner may become part of the family stories, inside jokes, holidays and memories that continue long after the suitcases are packed away. Your child gains an exchange sibling, but your whole family has the opportunity to gain another child to care about on the other side of the world.
Is Your Family Ready to Host?
A strong host family is willing to:
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Welcome the student as part of the family
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Provide appropriate care, supervision and everyday support
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Keep the student active, involved and experiencing the community and culture
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Support language immersion and growing independence
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Be patient through adjustment and cultural differences
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Communicate openly with the student, other family, and EFI
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Commit fully to both sides of the reciprocal exchange
If that sounds like something your family can embrace, you may be ready for the hosting side of an EFI exchange.
Have a Destination in Mind?
Tell Us Where You Would Love to Go. Then Keep the Door Open.
It is completely natural for a student to begin with a particular country in mind. Maybe they have studied the language for years. Maybe they have family connections there. Maybe they simply cannot stop imagining themselves in France, Spain or Italy.
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Tell us.
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But when it comes time to match, we also encourage families to look beyond the map.
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A wonderful exchange partner in a country you had not expected can be a far better opportunity than an imperfect match in the country you originally chose.
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After all, your child will not simply be going to another country.
They will be joining another family.
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And that is where the exchange really happens.