Need help on foreign exchange programs.

I need help convincing my parents to do foreign exchange in high school my senior year?

• I need help convincing my parents to do foreign exchange in high school my senior year? I want to go to Australia my senior year of high school and do foreign exchange. I have brought it up multiple times but my dad just isn't convinced. I finally got him to tell me why he doesn't feel comfortable with me going. He says god forbid, if something were to happen to me he would feel helpless. If i were to get into an accident or get raped or something he would feel like he could do nothing because i would be halfway across the world. The other reason is he doesn't really know who the host family would be and he doesn't feel like he could trust the people becuase he doesn't know anything about them. and finally, he has high expectations for me and he doesn't think that doing foreign exchange in high school will help me get into a good college. I know he loves me and cares about me but i feel like he's being overprotective, however i do understand where he is coming from. But at the same time I would like to do this and fully commit so if anything happened to me i feel like it would be my fault and not his. He did want me to find more information out so i definatly will but he is just not convinced. Please help me find a way to make him feel at ease and comfortable about doing foreign exchange in high school. sorry this is soo long! please help me !

• Answer:

  Your dad is never going to "feel at ease" about this, so forget that. I have an alternative suggestion for you. Put off the "foreign" experience for a few years, let yourself graduate from high school and possibly college, then, when you are old enough, you can do whatever studying you want wherever you want. This is a particularly bad time to decide to go to a foreign country, right when your focus should be on getting into a good college. It's hard enough to do when you are right here and can control some of the variables, but it will be nearly impossible if you are "half a world away." You may have ulterior motives for running off to another country. Maybe you actually hate your high school, the teachers, and the other students. But there is only one more year of it, and then you'll be in college, which is an entirely different experience. Study overseas looks exciting and romantic, but it is ever so much more satisfying if you do it at the right time. Save yourself the constant arguments, forget about Australia for right now, and follow the path which will get your life settled and in order. Then, the world will be open to you at your own whim.