Anett Istdochegal comments

Gosh, how negative comments! We've been hosting year students for more or less the last 10 years (currently our 5th WYS student), and the ones where it just didn't work out were 2 kids who 1) didn't give a sh*t about living with a family and basically stayed away from home from 6.30 am to 9 pm nearly every day. And #2 had too many psychological problems to carry around and possibly was too young to come to a difficult country as Japan and turned totally bitchy that we kicked that kid out. So in over 80% of all cases we had o.k. till unforgettably great experiences.

And yes, I would say it's far more often the student's fault than the family's that they do not try hard enough and/or are unable to mentally leave their country. Japan is no easy country to come to but very rewarding if you make it. And even if it wasn't exactly what your greatest interest was, trying something new can be really surprising. One student of ours chose tea ceremony as a school club, and that student was basically complaining about it for the first 2 months. And around the time when I got fed up with all the complaining and suggested they might just consider changing the club, something happened and that kid fell totally in love with tea ceremony. Rejecting something immediately that plays an important part in the life of a family is exactly the same as refusing to even try to eat an unknown kind of food. Show respect for it and give it a try, and normal families will appreciate it and understand if despite all hard tries it just can't become your new hobby. And if you still have problems, then talk to your counsellor. That's their job to try to find solutions acceptable for both parties.