Compass How to Share Your Teenager's Experience | Page 4

COMMUNICATING WITH YOUR TEENAGER
It is difficult to give specific guidelines on how often
to write to your son or daughter, but fairly frequent
letters (as often as one a week initially) are helpful
in providing continued information about what your
family is doing, and showing that you are thinking of
them. Students need to know both good news and
bad news; when news is never bad, students may
suspect that things are being held back from them.
On the other hand, it is not useful to worry students
by giving them emotional details of how people are
feeling. Your judgment on how to best support your
child through your letters will guide you, as always.

Your teenager’s adjustment abroad can be severely
disrupted by frequent phone calls and emails from
home.
YFU recommends that families write at least once
to the host family. A friendly letter explaining how
pleased you are that they are caring for your child for
the exchange period would be appropriate. Some
families develop a very close relationship, others do
not. This relationship is not necessary, but can be an
added dimension to the exchange experience.

Phone calls and emails to your teenager should
be limited to very special occasions – birthdays,
Christmas, a special family holiday. Phone calls should
be planned in advance. It is hard to say and know
how students will react to phone calls; these can
cause students to get upset and become homesick.

SUMMING UP
There are many things
about your teenager’s exchange
experience that you may never
understand – the intangibles that cannot
be explained. It is difficult to convey the
sense of a culture and what it has meant to
live there.
Your interest in the host country and the
experiences of your child there should
help your family enjoy some of
the rewards that come of the
exchange experience.

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Compass: Cross-Cultural Resources for Exchange Students