By on April 21st, 2017
How to Set Rules as a Host Family for International Students
While there’s a lot to look forward to as a host family, you’ll need to set ground rules at some point. Here are some tips to make this essential step as easy as possible.
Make Sure Your Family Is on the Same Page
In most families, house rules really amount to unspoken rules everyone learns over time. It’s very rare that they’re actually written down somewhere or ever reviewed or formally revised.
This usually isn’t much of a problem, but it might prove to be after you decide to bring on a homestay student.
To avoid any potential problems, sit down with your family before they’re arrival and list out what your rules are. Make sure everyone understands them. Otherwise, your visiting student may become confused when your children aren’t abiding by the same rules they are.
Get Them Out of the Way Early
Life will be a lot easier for everyone involved if you get the house rules out of the way early. Obviously, we’re not saying immediately. Let your student settle in, handle introductions and offer them a meal first.
However, you don’t want to go too long without bringing them up. This increases the likelihood that they’ll break a rule without knowing any better – something nobody wants.
One easy way to get some of them out of the way is to touch on room-specific rules when giving your tour. For example, if there’s no TV on school nights, you can say as much when you show them the TV room.
Include the Homestay Program Rules
Homestay programs have their own rules, as well, which you must follow as the host parent. Be sure you understand them before your student arrives. Ask the program any questions you may have early, as well.
Then, when your student arrives, go over the rules together. Fortunately, these are usually common sense, but they’re still worth reviewing.
Include Chores
Along the same lines, if your children do chores, then your guest should, too. This is part of treating them like the other kids. If you don’t do this, you’ll find that your children begin to resent this other person.
Be Clear
Don’t take for granted that your student will automatically know what it means to clean their room. Sure, it might seem obvious, but that might entail different tasks where they’re from. Give them specific results to aim for so they know they’ve followed your rules.
Encourage Questions
Let your student know that you fully expect questions from them. They might come up when they’re first introduced to your rules, but it might also take a week or more before your student realizes they don’t understand something.
This is to be expected, so just encourage them to ask for clarification as things come up.
If you follow the above advice, this will be easy enough to do.