We are in the midst of the holiday season and we are wishing all tidings of comfort and joy but is your exchange student truly feeling it? Luckily I have not had to deal with homesickness at the holidays and we have been able to fully enjoy the season, but that isn’t
always the case.
Lots of students feel sad during the holidays because their families and friends from home are so far away. It is natural and it happens. The best thing for it is to keep your student busy, which if your holiday season is anything like mine, it shouldn’t be hard. Between shopping, wrapping, visiting friends and family, going to see the lights, baking, cooking, and everything else that goes with your holiday season there is no shortage of things to keep them busy. But it is important to acknowledge these feelings and let your student know that you are there for them if they want to talk; and if they don’t want to talk to you, encourage them to reach out to their IEC or program advisor. Note: sometimes being on the phone with people in their home country can lead or cause more homesickness, if they start to experience it ask them to limit their calls home to couple times (or once) a week and to keep the calls short until the homesickness passes. It is important to for them to be mentally present during the exchange as a whole but especially during the holidays.
Sharing Traditions:
During the holidays please share your traditions with your students. Even if they are not the “normal” traditions, for example we eat Chinese food on Christmas Day and go see a movie—we use the holiday as a full day of relaxation. Also encourage your students to share their traditions and see if you can incorporate them into the season. We try to incorporate former students traditions too (sometimes we forget though….like the sock candy thing day that has come and gone. oops!). If your student doesn’t have any holiday traditions (because they don’t celebrate these holidays at home), suggest they make something up or pick something from what they have seen in the movies/series to add.
Some of our traditions during the season are going to Busch Gardens (theme park) for their Christmas town, walking around Colonial Williamsburg and ice skating, and decorating the tree together. We have a nice dinner for Christmas Eve and open one gift and then Christmas Day is about just hanging out together.
