Can my host family take my phone away all the time?

[LdiJ]

Yeah I do know that my parents still have custody (that’s what it’s called right?) because my organization told us that but I didn’t know that they can use that in this situation too. (This sentence was hard for me to explain, hope you know how I meant it)

I do understand how you meant it. I am glad that your exchange organization finally realized that the match was a poor one and are placing you elsewhere. My uncle did tell me that one year he acted as a replacement host for someone who did not mesh well with their original host. He had already decided to stop being a host but took one more student because they needed a replacement. I actually remember that particular student because I helped with some language issues with her.

 

[t74]

Oh no it wasn’t about chores. If they would’ve told me to do that I would.
It’s about me being in my room on the weekends (mostly doing homework) when they are outside giving the cattle some shots or stuff. But they are outside working cattle all the time. so I don’t know when the „cool things“ happen. And they don’t even tell me about it so I don’t even know what’s going on.

You apparently are on a working farm or ranch. Your hosts are indeed working just not at an office job. Your attitude towards them in your comments is demeaning and inappropriate. Dealing with their aniumals is very important to their income. If they are farming, this is a slow time of year outside but there is much to do to prepare for next season. As a member of their family, you are expected to work on chores just as the other similarly aged children in the family. Your reference to "cool" things makes it sound like you are expecting to be treated as a guest and entertained.

It appears as you make more comments that you had unrealistic expectations as to the experiences you would have. The opportunity to work with farm animals is a unique experience; many American children will never be able to do that.. I expect that a good part of the problem is your attitude given your expectations are not being met. The lives of most American teens are not as they appear on TV or in the movies. It is busy with school and associated activities there, helping at home, and studying. A big time in my family for my children was the Friday night football game and , if of the appropriate age, a date for pizza and a movie or miniture golf or a similarly age appropriate activity such as an occasional affordable concert. In some countries, a student your age might go to a pub or music club. You would not be allowed to enter any place where alcoholic beverages (including beer) are served. This limits what you might consider to be "cool" activities.

If you are staying in your room with your phone, they are likely concerned that you are involved in something dangerous to you or is inappropriate. I expect that if you are in the main living area with the rest of the family, you phone activities would be less of an issue.

Unless you understand what is expected of you when you are placed in a different situation, you are likely to be unhappy there as well. Please discuss your responsibilities and expectations with your sponsoring organization.

 

[Just Blue]

You apparently are on a working farm or ranch. Your hosts are indeed working just not at an office job. Your attitude towards them in your comments is demeaning and inappropriate. Dealing with their aniumals is very important to their income. If they are farming, this is a slow time of year outside but there is much to do to prepare for next season. As a member of their family, you are expected to work on chores just as the other similarly aged children in the family. Your reference to "cool" things makes it sound like you are expecting to be treated as a guest and entertained.

It appears as you make more comments that you had unrealistic expectations as to the experiences you would have. The opportunity to work with farm animals is a unique experience; many American children will never be able to do that.. I expect that a good part of the problem is your attitude given your expectations are not being met. The lives of most American teens are not as they appear on TV or in the movies. It is busy with school and associated activities there, helping at home, and studying. A big time in my family for my children was the Friday night football game and , if of the appropriate age, a date for pizza and a movie or miniture golf or a similarly age appropriate activity such as an occasional affordable concert. In some countries, a student your age might go to a pub or music club. You would not be allowed to enter any place where alcoholic beverages (including beer) are served. This limits what you might consider to be "cool" activities.

If you are staying in your room with your phone, they are likely concerned that you are involved in something dangerous to you or is inappropriate. I expect that if you are in the main living area with the rest of the family, you phone activities would be less of an issue.

Unless you understand what is expected of you when you are placed in a different situation, you are likely to be unhappy there as well. Please discuss your responsibilities and expectations with your sponsoring organization.

Extra like!!

 

[cbg]

My Uncle and Aunt (who had no children of their own) hosted foreign students every year for almost 20 years. I did ask my Uncle today if he would have considered it appropriate to take away one of their cellphones. He stated that it would NOT be permissible without the consent of the child's actual parents. He said that the parents do not give up their right to control what their children do and do not have, or do or do not do (within reason) just because they allow them to study abroad.

Please note that I did not address the question of the phone at all - only the teenage perception of the adults as "crazy". And I stand by my refusal to accept the teenage perception as valid without verification.

 

[giulia_de]

You apparently are on a working farm or ranch. Your hosts are indeed working just not at an office job. Your attitude towards them in your comments is demeaning and inappropriate. Dealing with their aniumals is very important to their income. If they are farming, this is a slow time of year outside but there is much to do to prepare for next season. As a member of their family, you are expected to work on chores just as the other similarly aged children in the family. Your reference to "cool" things makes it sound like you are expecting to be treated as a guest and entertained.

It appears as you make more comments that you had unrealistic expectations as to the experiences you would have. The opportunity to work with farm animals is a unique experience; many American children will never be able to do that.. I expect that a good part of the problem is your attitude given your expectations are not being met. The lives of most American teens are not as they appear on TV or in the movies. It is busy with school and associated activities there, helping at home, and studying. A big time in my family for my children was the Friday night football game and , if of the appropriate age, a date for pizza and a movie or miniture golf or a similarly age appropriate activity such as an occasional affordable concert. In some countries, a student your age might go to a pub or music club. You would not be allowed to enter any place where alcoholic beverages (including beer) are served. This limits what you might consider to be "cool" activities.

If you are staying in your room with your phone, they are likely concerned that you are involved in something dangerous to you or is inappropriate. I expect that if you are in the main living area with the rest of the family, you phone activities would be less of an issue.

Unless you understand what is expected of you when you are placed in a different situation, you are likely to be unhappy there as well. Please discuss your responsibilities and expectations with your sponsoring organization.

Well that’s not at all how it is. And why I said „cool“ things is because that were the exact words my host mom used during the talk with my local coordinator. I’m not staying in my room with my phone but with homework. Doesn’t have to do anything with my phone. Only one of my host sisters works cattle and she doesn’t do it all time but for maybe 2 hours every Saturday. This isn’t their main job. My host dad is retired. They are doing it because they like doing it. It’s not even a big ranch, ist just far away from our house. And most of the time my host dad is in the house watching tv in the living room( I experience this on the weekends and from no school days) So they don’t even work much. I had the opportunity to go to 2 football games, those other things you listed aren’t even possibility’s for me because of the reason that my host mom isn’t living with us every Friday to Monday. And all my friends live 50 minutes away from me. I don’t even want to go to pubs or something like that. Why would I decide to go to the US when I want to drink or party, when I know the legal drinking age is 21. So yeah going to school and staying home all year isn’t what I expected. And even if I would work cattle it’s still not a big experience because as I said they don’t do much. So I rather spend that time talking to my family than sadly they work always on the same time. And that time is also the perfect time to talk to my family back home.
And if you know say that I don’t have to talk to them every week them I can tell you two things. First of they don’t even work cattle that often on the weekends, second of this whole situation that I am in (which I haven’t really explained and I won’t) makes me more homesick. Most people may say that talking to family causes even more homesickness but to me it soothes my homesickness and I feel way better after I’ve talked to them.

And how can my attitude be demeaning and inappropriate, when my two organizations (my German and American one) and my school counselor, and my churchgroup leader, who knows my family very well, understand and agree with me.

Don’t state facts like that when you don’t know the whole story. And this wasn’t even 1/4 out of the story. I only asked about my phone situation and tried to get an answer about that, not about anything else. Everything I did, that lead to this was answering questions. Of course I won’t tell my whole 3 months life story within those answers, because they weren’t really that important to answer my question above.

 

[giulia_de]

Please note that I did not address the question of the phone at all - only the teenage perception of the adults as "crazy". And I stand by my refusal to accept the teenage perception as valid without verification.

Yeah I know you didn’t. You don’t have to accept it as valid because this post is not about anything like that. It doesn’t matter if my hostfamily is „crazy“ because I didn’t ask for help about living with my host family but about them taking my phone.

 

[cbg]

I wasn't talking to you...

 

[giulia_de]

I wasn't talking to you...

Oh I’m sorry I wasn’t looking on what you were replying to

 

[giulia_de]

I do understand how you meant it. I am glad that your exchange organization finally realized that the match was a poor one and are placing you elsewhere. My uncle did tell me that one year he acted as a replacement host for someone who did not mesh well with their original host. He had already decided to stop being a host but took one more student because they needed a replacement. I actually remember that particular student because I helped with some language issues with her.

Yeah that’s kinda how my situation is because there is this woman that had an exchange student before also a German girl and she would love to take me in. She told that my counselor three weeks ago, but my local coordinator complicated everything. She is already so excited because she is actually gonna be my host mom now after all of this.

 

[Just Blue]

I honestly hope that the American Students studying in Germany display more maturity and consideration toward their host families than you have with yours.

 

[t74]

I also expect that your host family will be happy when you are placed in a situation more to your liking. It is difficult to welcome a stranger - an uncooperative teenager no less - into a family during the best of circumstances. Given the death of a key family member, your presence is making a difficult situation even worse.

I take your claim that others agree with you to be of little value since they have heard only your side of the story. You seem to be embellishing it to make you host family look to be horrible people. You have no way of knowing a person's situation yet you disparage them as lazy.

I have hosted international students from both high schools abroad and the local university. The majority of my experiences have been bad. I gave up except for university faculty and their families.

 

[not2cleverRed]

I also expect that your host family will be happy when you are placed in a situation more to your liking. It is difficult to welcome a stranger - an uncooperative teenager no less - into a family during the best of circumstances. Given the death of a key family member, your presence is making a difficult situation even worse.

I take your claim that others agree with you to be of little value since they have heard only your side of the story. You seem to be embellishing it to make you host family look to be horrible people. You have no way of knowing a person's situation yet you disparage them as lazy.

I have hosted international students from both high schools abroad and the local university. The majority of my experiences have been bad. I gave up except for university faculty and their families.

I'm glad that I am not alone in this. When I was in high school, my family had a truly horrible experience with an exchange student whose attitude was much similar to this one, who told everyone I was "crazy". Considering where I went to school, "boring" would have been a better adjective...

 

[giulia_de]

A

I also expect that your host family will be happy when you are placed in a situation more to your liking. It is difficult to welcome a stranger - an uncooperative teenager no less - into a family during the best of circumstances. Given the death of a key family member, your presence is making a difficult situation even worse.

I take your claim that others agree with you to be of little value since they have heard only your side of the story. You seem to be embellishing it to make you host family look to be horrible people. You have no way of knowing a person's situation yet you disparage them as lazy.

I have hosted international students from both high schools abroad and the local university. The majority of my experiences have been bad. I gave up except for university faculty and their families.

all the people I listed talked to my host mom and heard her side of the story. The will move me now, because they agree with me

 

[LdiJ]

I also expect that your host family will be happy when you are placed in a situation more to your liking. It is difficult to welcome a stranger - an uncooperative teenager no less - into a family during the best of circumstances. Given the death of a key family member, your presence is making a difficult situation even worse.

I take your claim that others agree with you to be of little value since they have heard only your side of the story. You seem to be embellishing it to make you host family look to be horrible people. You have no way of knowing a person's situation yet you disparage them as lazy.

I have hosted international students from both high schools abroad and the local university. The majority of my experiences have been bad. I gave up except for university faculty and their families.

If the majority of your experiences were bad, it's unusual that you continued to do it beyond your first experience. On top of that, its clear the you are unable to deal with cultural differences so your experiences are not surprising.

 

[Just Blue]

If the majority of your experiences were bad, it's unusual that you continued to do it beyond your first experience. On top of that, its clear the you are unable to deal with cultural differences so your experiences are not surprising.

Really? What did t74 write that "makes it clear" that she had trouble with cultural differences? Because I, for one, don't agree with your "assessment" at all.