Host Family Survival Kit : A Guide for American Host Families

Rating:
Summary: From an exchange student coordinator
Review: I am an exchange student coordinator for students that come from very different cultures from the United States. This book was somewhat helpful to me in discovering different ways to explain to families concepts such as "unspoken rules" or how to treat an exchange student within your household, as well as cultural differences.

This book does help families understand their undetected cultural biases in a way that I haven't seen in other publications.

Not all host families work out and I intend to use this book as a resource for families that are having challenges arranging to life with an exchange student.

I have directly supervised 9 students over 1.5 years and indirectly with hundreds more.

Rating:
Summary: Did not reflect our experience at all!
Review: I read this book a month or so before our exchange student arrived and, although I didn't believe at the time that it had all the answers, I was not prepared for how utterly useless it was for our family. In contrast to the timeline given in the book, our student seemed to adjust quickly and well, then things got progressively worse as he became more and more comfortable in our home. He started out on his best behavior and ended up completely ignoring our house rules and the cultural norms of the school and community. I'm seriously considering writing my own book and calling it "The Alternative Host Family Survival Guide".

Rating:
Summary: Host Family Survival Kit- Not a neccesity
Review: The book "Host Family Survival Kit: A Guide for American Families" was an informative book, but a little hard to read. It also seemed to discuss a lot of negative things that many happen to a host family. The book was not uplifting, and read a lot like a high-school textbook. The book is also very out-of-date, even though it was only published 15 years ago. This book provides adequate information for a prospective host family, but not a must have.