What We’ve Been Up To Lately
In our other lives, the Exchange Mom and Exchange Dad are an environmental lawyer and a consultant working on climate change issues. In the past couple of months, we’ve been busy creating new websites for our business . . . as a staff of two with no outside employees, we’re the definition of “small company,” […]
Life Lessons You’ll Learn From Hosting Exchange Students
By Guest Author Sophia Jones Now may be a great time to consider becoming a host family for an exchange student. An Institute of International Education report stated that the number of international students in U.S. high schools tripled from 2004 to 2016, and more are set to arrive. Many of these students hope to continue their […]
Why Host an Exchange Student (or is Technology Enough?)
This time of year, high school exchange student programs in the U.S. are seeking host families for the coming academic year. You may have seen posts on Facebook, read flyers in your local coffee shop, or visited an exchange organization’s booth at a local community event. Your thoughts might be “what a cool idea!,” or perhaps […]
Thought for Today: Sharing is How You Make it Work
Tip of the day for host families and students… Sharing about what’s going on in your life is a great way to begin to get to know each other. What can you share with each other about your day? It doesn’t have to be an earth-shattering or jaw-dropping story … just the little things. Did […]
Warm Wishes to All!
On this Christmas Day, we send warm wishes to all our readers and to all our students and host families, current and former. We think about all the ups and downs, and give thanks that we are able to contribute just a little bit to the “ups” part of it all! Most of all, we […]
Halfway Through the Exchange Year – Holiday Thoughts 2017
It’s the time of year for musings and contemplation of the past and the future when it comes to your exchange student’s adventure here in the United States. Today, we are thinking about how the past five months have gone for the exchange students in our group. In our regular check-in calls and meetings, several […]
An Exchange Mom Video Minute: The Holidays
As a host family, are you thinking about the holidays with your student? As a student, are you wondering what the holidays will be like in your host country? This is our first video in our “Exchange Mom Minute” series. We hope to have many more…we’ll see what we can do in between the rest […]
Behind the Scenes: A Day in the Life of an Exchange Coordinator
People who are involved with hosting exchange students — whether it be as a host family, student, parent back home, teacher or counselor at school — know the basic rule that their coordinator will be contacting them by phone or in person at least once every month. It’s right there in the regulations. Sometimes, it really […]