What Happens When A Teen Exchange Student Arrives: Lessons From Hosting Our Belgian Guest
The rain streaked the windshield of the airport shuttle when it pulled into our driveway at 8:17 PM. I was still wiping crumbs off the guest desk from my 14-year-old’s after-school cookie binge, and I’d remembered to buy orange juice but forgotten the speculoos he’d mentioned liking in his pre-arrival email. My older daughter leaned against the front door, scrolling TikTok, and my husband was pretending he didn’t already recheck the Wi-Fi password three times.
Mats stepped out first, 16, lanky, with a beat-up hiking backpack slung over one shoulder and a small hard-shell suitcase dotted with airport stickers. He handed us a box of handmade Belgian pralines, mumbled a thank you for having him, and kept his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets the whole walk in. He said he was tired after the 12-hour travel day, so we showed him his room, said goodnight, and left him to settle in. No big dramatic welcome, just quiet.
For the first three days, everything felt like a polite tug of war. Ask him what he wanted for breakfast, he’d say “whatever you’re having.” Ask if he wanted to join our family hike or stay home to rest, he’d say “whatever you want to do.” Order takeout for dinner, he’d shrug and say anything is fine. He never turned the AC down even though he was sweating through his t-shirts in our August heat. He never got a second glass of water unless we offered. I started to wonder if we’d made a huge mistake, if he was miserable here and too polite to say it.
The turning point was small. I knocked on his door one afternoon to ask if he wanted to join us for ice cream, and I heard him talking on the phone in Flemish, his voice tight and quiet. When he opened the door, his eyes were pink, and he quickly wiped his cheek on his sleeve before I could say anything. I didn’t push him to talk about it then, but an hour later when he came into the kitchen to get a drink while I folded laundry, I just said, “Homesickness hits differently when you’re 16, huh? No need to pretend it’s all fine here.”
He leaned against the counter for a minute, then nodded. He told me his orientation leader back in Brussels had told all the exchange students that the biggest reason students get sent home early is being “too much trouble” for their host families. So he’d decided he would be easy, go along with everything, never ask for anything. He didn’t know our routines, he didn’t want to mess anything up, so “whatever” felt like the safest answer.
That’s when I realized what I’d done wrong. I’d read all the hosting guides that said “be flexible, let them set the pace” so I’d left every choice open to him. But that flexibility wasn’t a comfort—it was a burden. He was 16, in a new country, where he didn’t know the unspoken rules of our house. Open-ended questions meant he had to carry the weight of not being a bother.
I made a small change the next day that’s made all the difference. I wrote a short note on a piece of cardstock and taped it to the fridge, right next to my daughter’s soccer schedule. It said: Speculoos is on the second shelf of the pantry, help yourself any time. AC can be adjusted any time, just turn the knob. Laundry is open any day, just put a towel down if you hang it in the bathroom. You can say no to any plan, no hard feelings. Knock on any door if you need something.
I also stopped asking open-ended questions. Instead of “what do you want to do this weekend,” I say “We’re going to my son’s cross country meet Saturday morning, then we get burgers after. You can come with or stay home and hang out, either works.” Instead of “what do you want for breakfast,” I say “We have cereal or scrambled eggs this morning, both are ready in five minutes.” It takes two extra seconds to frame the question that way, and it takes all the pressure off him. He doesn’t have to guess what fits our routine, he just picks.
The whole thing works because it’s low effort. I don’t have to think up new activities every day to keep him happy. I just adjusted the small, unspoken parts of our house to make it clear he’s allowed to take up space here. A week after I taped the note to the fridge, I noticed he’d moved the speculoos from the back of the shelf to the front, closer to the door. He added a tiny question mark next to the laundry line, asking if he could use detergent any time, so I just wrote “any time” under it in pen. That was it.
We’re still figuring it out. It’s only been three weeks. He still defaults to “whatever” sometimes, and he still calls his mom every Sunday night and closes the door when he talks. Last week, he actually argued with my daughter over the TV remote—he wanted to watch a soccer match from home, she wanted to watch her weekly reality show. He didn’t back down right away like he would have the first week, and I secretly thought it was the best thing that had happened all month. It meant he was comfortable being annoyed, comfortable not being polite all the time.
I went into this thinking hosting an exchange student meant planning big road trips and making endless special memories. What I’ve learned so far is that what they need most is just a small, clear spot in your ordinary life. You don’t have to rearrange everything for them. You just have to tell them where the snacks are, give them simple choices, and let them stop being a guest eventually. It’s not the polished experience I saw in the program brochures, but yesterday I walked past his room and saw the door propped open, him blasting some Flemish rock band while he folded his own laundry, and that feels like enough for right now.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » What Happens When A Teen Exchange Student Arrives: Lessons From Hosting Our Belgian Guest