Can you help us think of anything we can do to prepare our grand-daughter for her trip to France as a foreign exchange student?

A someone who grew up with numerous foreign stints, I think culture shock is the point of the trip. However, it sounds like you would feel better with some reassurance about her well-being while away. To that end, I would make sure she knows how to use a local phone and/or pay phone, and has the funds to contact a confidante from home once or twice if she needs to or wants to. Foreign telephones can be alien things, but knowing she's familiar with one and has your (or her parents') ok to use it once or twice if she's terribly homesick would be helpful. And if it's not clear, unless she is distressingly anxious about the trip, I don't recommend that she go over with her own full service cell phone, because that makes it too easy to check out of local culture and activities. I would not set her up with internet access. I would not make it easy to Skype/Facetime/etc. There is much more to be gained by letting her experience the distance and differences of another place. My two cents.

I haven't been involved in a youth exchange program, but as a camp counselor, even in the US when parents were just an hour away, I heard lots of similar concerns on the part of parents. It was more isolating in those days because there was zero electronic communication allowed, or even possible. And of course, the kids were living and sharing sleeping space with kids from many different walks of life, whom they didn't know, as well as adults who were basically strangers too, aside from being vetted by the camp staff. Kids are generally much more adaptable than you think, though. Homesickness happens, but what works best is to communicate that though homesickness is totally normal and natural, it's not a dealbreaker. It's OK to be a little sniffly or sad in lonely moments and to miss your home. You don't have to cover it up. But you can start helping her now get the tools to self-soothe if those moments happen. Distracting yourself, keeping busy, having plenty to read/look at, keeping a daily journal, making friends, allowing yourself to have fun, are all things you can tell her now will help her enjoy herself and not be homesick. Just building up her confidence that she'll be able to handle herself and come out fine, because she's prepared to do that, will help beyond measure. One nice thing you can do is invent a little ritual that she can do to make her feel you're in touch emotionally. For some reason a lot of people do this with the moon - if you see the moon, I'm seeing it too and we think of each other. Or "every night before you fall asleep, list off everything beautiful in your day and 'send' it to me telepathically." Or something like that. It helps more than you'd think. From what I've read they are not as modest as far as nudity or sexuality, especially with their T.V. programing. Again, kids are adaptable. If you're worried about how the media might be different, what about getting some French TV shows or movies on Netflix now and watching them together? You can pre-view them of course to make sure they're not SUPER adult. This might help with language and cultural acclimatization, too. And how about looking online or in the library for maps of the town she'll be staying, sending away for tourist brochures, etc? Making it real and predictable would help her feel more at home. But in general, have faith in kids' resilience. It's usually a lot stronger than adults think. And often, the hardest part of being away from home for a kid is actually seeing the parent struggle with it, and picking up on their intense worry, and worrying about whether they're causing their parents sadness or loneliness by being away. So do what you can to project confidence and enthusiasm as well as openness to the possibility that there might be a few sad moments. Just make sure she knows all of us, even adults, have sad homesick moments when we travel, but we still love to travel because the experiences we have are so very worth it!

When I was her age, I was also sent abroad to a family I didn't know, and I had very few skills in the language I was there to practice. Feel free to MeMail me.. Today, I am bilingual and have repeated the experience many times during my teenage years and young adulthood. I have met lots of friends, gone to concerts, discovered a new culture, and spent time with people that I would never have met otherwise. I didn't realize it back then, but even from a sociological point of view, it is also a very enriching experience, and it can really help someone getting new perspectives and insights on the world. As they say : "les voyages forment la jeunesse" Some culture shock is to be expected, but what all these experiences getting out of my comfort zone have taught me, is beyond measure. I can tell you all about it ! :)

I think it matters a lot if your grand-daughter wants to go on this trip herself, or if it's something her parents have decided would be a good idea. If this was her idea, then I don't think you have to worry that much about her. Yes, there will be a bit of culture shock, but tell her to bring her teddy bear and one box of fig newtons (or her favorite snack food). In fact, I think you could do more harm than good if she isn't all that worried right now, and you spend the entire time between here and her trip warning her how miserable she could be and how different the French are from Americans, and therefore how hard it is going to be for her to relate to them, etc. On the other hand, if she is already nervous about the trip, I think the advice about the teddy bear and the one box of snack food still holds. And then teach her how to skype and set up two skype dates: one for the second night she's there, when she'll be feeling the most jet-lagged and disoriented, and one for a week and a half in. As someone who has worked as a camp counselor and with other kids far away from home, the best cure for homesickness is not constant contact with their parents but instead having fun with the kids they're with. So when you talk to her the first time, be positive and encourage her to do lots of stuff with her host family, and don't let her call you every day, etc. And sort of related to what I said earlier, I think how you frame this trip is going to matter a lot regardless of whether she is excited about it or not. As the adult, you're giving her the rules and the framework for what she should be scared of or worried about, because she doesn't have enough perspective to figure that out yet on her own. So if you keep telling an already-nervous kid, "Oh, it's going to be such a big shock for you to be in France. I'm really worried that you're going to be overwhelmed, because you haven't travelled much and you don't know the language and aren't good at meeting new people, etc" the chances of that kid having a meltdown in France are pretty high. However, if you keep telling her things like "I've heard [or, if you've been there, I've found] that France is a pretty interesting place. Did you know I've heard that no matter what, they stop what they are doing at noon to have lunch? Do you think that's really true? I bet your host family is going to be excited to meet you." Or, "I know it can be a bit hard sometimes talking to new people in a new language, but you should know everyone feels a bit awkward at first, and it's worth it to keep trying. When I'm not really fluent in a language, I just smile a lot and end up gesturing alot, and I end up having a lot of fun. It's like playing pictionary, but in real life [erm, is that game dated? oh well]."

Usually with exchanges, there's a set pattern: a time where you love love love everything about the place, a time where you hate hate hate everything about the place, and then the final, lasting happy medium between the two. For three weeks, your granddaughter likely won't even make it out of the honeymoon phase, I'm guessing. How to prepare her? Aside from basic communication stuff like the laptop you've mentioned, there's not much. Let her know that there will be changes, that a different way of doing things isn't necessarily better or worse but just different, and to try and roll with the punches as best she can. It's only three weeks. It'll be done in no time, for better or worse.

Where will this be? In what way do you expect a culture shock? Will she be living in a city? Do you expect something significant beyond your grand-daughter living 3 weeks in NYC? Young people are surprisingly malleable and she will probably take everything in stride. The one glaring issue, language, cannot be discussed easily as we do not know her level of French nor her host family's level of English.

She will be in Lyon. They will spend a few days in Paris. Ohhhhh I lived in central Lyon (near the quais on the Rhône) for a year as a university exchange student! It is my favorite city in France. Yes, even more favorite than Paris – not because Paris lacks anything, mind, but because Lyon hits the sweet spot of cultural density, awesome history, great modern-day entertainment possibilities (from books to cinema to classical music to jazz to food to etc. etc.), in a liveable size. Paris' cultural density is overwhelming... Lyon's is impressive. It's a city whose nooks and crannies and little mysteris you can really come to know, whereas Paris always has something new to discover. (All a matter of taste!) By the way, I'm from the middle of nowhere, Oregon (outside of Springfield), and had never lived anywhere else before coming to France. I found Lyon to be great precisely because it's not a massive cultural shock like Paris can be – Lyonnais are more polite (sorry, Parisiens, it's true), shopkeepers are more approachable, and it's easier to reach the countryside. From what I've read they are not as modest as far as nudity or sexuality, especially with their T.V. programing. The "worst" a kid will see are naked boobs on shower gel commercials. Otherwise it's pretty much the same as the US. (Really. Stories you hear about "what the French are like" are mostly smoke and mirrors designed to sell books and page views, not reality.) I have taught her a little French, but only basic phrases. I think she will learn much more when her french student stays with her. She's at the age where she'll still pick up languages like a sponge, so I imagine she'll be fine there too. Depending on the family's generation – if they have a child her age, I imagine they're in their 30s or 40s, so this should be true – most French people speak English well enough to get by nowadays. On preview, from jph: If she's at all like my cousins - very picky eaters as children, on the order of "I can't eat this hotdog unless you remove the skin" - she may find the French uninterested in accommodating her food demands. This really depends. All the French parents I know, who have kids aged 0 to 16, accomodate their kids' food demands. All of them! It may be another generational difference. The idea to look into Lyon's history is great. Hopefully her program will do that too; Lyon is incredibly rich in history. There's something for every interest. Nthing everyone who's said not to worry about the cultural shock :) France is a great country – if she's interested in the country, its language and history, she'll have a ball. The only thing I'd really worry about would be the family culture, in fact. Do they enjoy the same pasttimes as your kid? We hosted a French teen for a month when I was 14, and she came from a big-city family who enjoyed visiting big cities and shopping sprees. Well, there she was in the middle of nowhere, Oregon, with the closest store in a 20-mile-radius being the http://boundless.uoregon.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/archpnw&CISOPTR=17983&CISOBOX=1&REC=2. That photo basically says it all. We'd planned to take her camping... she threw a fit (an actual fit) when she finally realized she would be sleeping in a tent. We ended up having to speak with the exchange program to switch kids, in fact – there was a family in town who had a boy who'd grown up loving the outdoors, so he came with us, excited to get to go camping, and our girl went with them, where she happily got to shop around in Eugene to her heart's content.

The two biggest issues will be: a) Language. It is easy to underestimate just how isolated one may feel when lacking fluency in a foreign language. Trust me, I've been there. However, even if you shouldn't expect a majority of people in France to be conversant in English, most people go out of their way to accomodate an 11-year old girl. Don't be too anxious about it. b) FOOD! Europeans in general, and the French in particular, take kids' nutrition a lot more seriously than Americans. She'll be left a lot less leeway about what, how and when to eat than back home, which is definitely not a bad thing in itself, but may be a problem if she's a picky eater. Also, the locals may be rather intrigued about some of her requests: if she likes PB&J sandwiches, I recommend you pack some peanut butter for her...

I also grew up in the rural US and I did this before the advent of international cellphones and free wifi, so there was no calling home or Facetime. I handled it just fine! Two things I would have appreciated while abroad, however: I felt incredibly unstylish and insecure looks-wise in an urban setting, even at as a young teen. If she is the kind of kid who would be bothered by this, set her up with some durable but cute shoes and a stylish cross-body purse appropriate for travel, figure out which stores sell affordable clothing items (H&M?) and give her a small amount of money with which to purchase a new item or two. I also missed my bath products at home and couldn't read any of the labels to know what I needed to get. My host family would have helped, except often times I was on my own with other Americans in the same boat. I would have loved to have small amounts in travel containers of my favorite products, let alone know what to buy in a pinch.