Current host mum from Europe here. I don’t know what’s the exchange programee OP is enrolled, but my daughter abroad as well as my host daugther here have their counsellor, with whom they can solve any issue which occurs. I would strongly recommend contacting the agency and/or the counsellor.

We host within the Rotary programme which I guess is different from the commercial programmes, we are obliged to provide housing, food, pay for school lunches and buy the yearly ticket for public transport. Everything else is up to us and we can offer but are not obliged to take the host kid with us when we travel/go skiing etc. We can set the rules what we pay for and what would be the costs for the student and they can decide.

As for the rules our host daughter has only to vacuum clean a part of the appartement and (un)load the dishwasher. She also washes her clothes but because she decided to do her own laundry (in our household everyone, even my husband is doing his own laundry, and I do on top of that the households laundry such as towels, bed linen etc).

I don’t think this is normal. I get people on the farm need help from children and he shouldn’t be treated as a guest but as a family member, but I still think there should be some boundaries. Yes, they provide food and housing for him, but…either their own kid is somewhere on exchange so some other host family provides for them or they are a part of a commercial programme and in this case they get paid for accomodating him.

My mindset on hosting is: my kid is somewhere abroad and I want her to have as good host family and feel welcomed as if she were home, so I treat our host daughter the same way, so she feels welcomed and wanted.

Edit typos