Contact with home

When I was an exchangestudent the only way to communicate with my family and friends back home was letters (the real kind) and phonecalls. And it took me a long time to write home the first time. And don't even get me started on pictures

But it is truly a different age now. Now there is facebook, skype, letters, blogs and phones. And maybe the expectations from home also is different now. Her family expects regular updates from her and that is a challenge for an exchangestudent. How much contact is too much? And since our own experiences have been so different how can we advise her? We also have contact with her parents so we had to sides to the dilemma and how should we deal with that? A tough situation for all.

As a parent I can appreciate the leap of faith it must take to send your child across the world to a family of strangers but as a former exchangestudent I know how important it is to immerse yourself in the new culture.

We consulted the experts: my hostparents to find out how to handle it. I kindly said to her parents that as long she integrates well into the danish culture there is no problem with at lot of contact but if it prevents her from integrating we need to set up a schedule that can meet both their and her needs.

Luckily we have been blessed with a student to very good negotiation skills. She will email once a week if they ask questions for her to answer in the email. If they request a skype call that counts as two weeks emails. Her mom recently offered to pay for each picture she posted on facebook. All we did was listen to her and her parents, give a few observations and left the decision making up to themselves.

Lessons learned
- Things sure have changed in 20 years
- Actual facetime can be a requirement from the natural parents
- We are here for her to help her make the most of her exchange year