Plan a weekly family game night or ask your student to help cook a meal. Schedule family time, events, volunteering or short trips a few days in advance to give your student something to look forward to.
You could even try being a tourist in your own community. A few ideas include:
Brush up on your town’s history and origin by checking out local museums, exhibits or landmarks
Take a new mode of transportation to get around
Attend local sporting events, festivals or concerts
Try a new restaurant
Nothing says “comfort” like being surrounded by some of your favorite belongings, participating in your favorite activities or eating your favorite foods. Learn what your student likes and aim to incorporate those foods, activities or interests into your routine. It’s bound to make them feel more at home.
You’ve spoken to your student and have tried to combat their homesickness with activities and outings, but you are still noticing signs. Be patient, it won’t be cured overnight.
Check in with your student regularly to ensure they are feeling better and continue to try these methods with them. Be sure to keep your IEC and/or Program Advisor looped in to how things are going with your student as they may have additional ideas to help the situation.
Yuto from Japan is spending his exchange in Maine. Since the beginning of his experience, he has been excited to try new things and has said yes to everything – family time, school activities, chores, playing with his little host siblings. Recently, the newness of these activities has worn off and Yuto is experiencing extreme homesickness. He is missing his own siblings, his favorite Japanese foods and being able to speak to everyone in Japanese. Yuto is losing interest in joining in on activities with his host family because he's missing the activities he does with his family back home.
The Perez family has hosted a few times. Yuto is their third boy from Japan. During his first few months here, the family had a really positive experience with Yuto; he immediately fit into their family and always had high energy. Recently, something is shifting in Yuto and the family doesn’t recognize his cold, unengaged behavior. Of all the students they’ve hosted, they have never seen a behavior shift like this.
Host mom Katie reached out to her IEC, Tiffany, to share this immediate shift in Yuto’s behavior. Tiffany suspected that Yuto was struggling with homesickness. This surprised Katie as she’s helped many students through homesickness, but to her, those signs seemed more obvious, like the student looking sad or always talking about how life “back home” was better. Katie and Tiffany got together with Yuto to speak with him about how they’ve noticed changes in his behavior and how they want to help him. Then, Katie and her partner Alex took Yuto to the Asian food market in their town where they could get a few Japanese staples. Yuto was delighted! That evening, Yuto used the foods to make dinner for his family and they spent the night talking about Japanese holidays and funny expressions. Katie and Alex also planned a few weeks worth of family activities like going to football games, having friends over and going for a hike so that Yuto would have events to look forward to. With time, Yuto's mood improved and the family learned how to best support him through the ups and downs of homesickness.
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