This post is the third of 
a three-part series on sending young children abroad. If you’re just joining in, you may want to check out the first two parts:
So, you’ve decided to send your child abroad and you have a potential family for her to stay with. What needs to happen now? We can boil the remaining tasks down to three major areas: preliminary research, information-gathering, and legalities, with a few added random tasks.
Preliminary Research
Now that you have a potential host family, it’s time to talk to them about when you’d like your child to visit and when they’d like their child to come and visit you. It’s also the time to nail down details of your child’s stay. At this stage in the game, you have to get over discomfort and awkwardness and ask the tough questions. You want your child’s stay to have few (if any) surprises. Think of it like a couple who needs to transition from the initial breathless stage of dating, to figuring out if they might actually want to spend their lives together. The smart couple will do all they can to learn everything they can while there’s still time to jump ship!
Think about what your biggest worries are, and find a way to gather the information you need. Really rack your brain for scenarios so that during his stay, there are no surprises. It’s also a good idea to put these points into writing and email them to the other family. Phone conversations are notoriously difficult when two parties are navigating a foreign-language conversation, so it’s a good idea to communicate through email, even if you’re re-capping the conversation you already had on the phone.
Here are some potential questions to get you started:
- Where will my child sleep during the visit?
- In what situations will my child be without supervision? You will probably want to know what will happen when the parents go to work, and whether or not the parents allow their child to roam free, taking the metro and going shopping by herself, for example.
- If the other child is allowed out alone, what is his curfew?
- What religious services will my child be attending and what will be the level of participation? For example, if you are Jewish, it would be a no-go if the parents always spend a week at evangelical Christian camp.
- Will your child have access to WiFi or otherwise be able to check in with you whenever they need to speak with you?
- Think about any conflicts you’ve had with friends locally when your child was sleeping over and use these issues to generate more questions.
This is also the time to start your child learning, or improving, any new language he’ll be exposed to. The Duolingo website is an easy (and free!) introduction to 23 world languages. If time and money allow, your child would strongly benefit from a few private tutoring sessions that can really work conversational ability. If this isn’t an option, you can find free conversational swaps online (check out Conversation Exchange and My Language Exchange). How much language skill he needs depends on the country he is going to and the family he will be living with, but of course, the more language he knows beforehand, the more meaningful the trip will be. A minimum to shoot for is for him to be able to hold a basic conversation about his name, age, and likes/dislikes.
Information Gathering
- Check with your insurance and find out how coverage works abroad.
- Explore travel insurance options. We did not purchase it for our child, but we know others who recommend it highly. Insure My Trip has a nice feature that can help you compare quotes and figure out the coverage you need.
- Find your child’s passport and check the expiration. Don’t assume that just because yours is still valid, that your child’s will be also. U.S. passports for children under 15 are only valid for 5 years, compared to 10 years for adults. You will be in a real panic if you’re two weeks out from the trip and find that it has expired. Ask me how I know. Where to Get or Renew a Passport
- Find out if you’ll need a visa
- Look up information on SIM cards to make sure your child has a phone that can have a local SIM (or plan for her to buy an international phone when she arrives). Decide how you and your child will communicate while abroad and make sure you both know how to use the app. Whats App and Snapchat are good options, as are iMessage and Facebook Messenger. The first few days are the hardest for your child, and you want him to feel connected. His phone will be his new lovey (if it wasn’t already!).
- Look up information on children flying unattended, so you can choose your airline and prepare your child for what’s to come. Here is a good resource put out by the U.S. Department of Transportation: https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.dev/files/docs/Kids_Fly_Alone.pdf
- Enroll your child’s trip in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP). This is a free service, allowing U.S. citizens and nationals to enroll their trip with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. This site also includes travel alerts and warnings. https://step.state.gov/step/
Legal Documents
Here are the documents that we sent with our daughter on her trip. Your needs may vary depending on your child and the specific country she is visiting:
- Your child needs a passport and you should make two copies of it: one to keep at home and a copy to send with her.
- A guardianship letter, ideally in both languages, which includes the trip information, host family information, and trip details. Every country has its own laws and forms. Your form will just be a stop-gap measure, if needed. Here is a guardianship template you can use.
- A list of all medicines and dosages.
- Copies of insurance information.
Other Tasks
- Consider giving your child a task while abroad. One excellent idea is for him to email you a journal entry every day, or use a journal app to record his time (I recommend Day One). This will become a treasure!
- Discuss cell phone limits. You definitely don’t want your child on her phone texting her friends all day long, every day. Set a limit, make sure the limit is understood, and tell the host family. Then check in with the host family weekly to ensure compliance!
- Come up with a special word or phrase as an emergency code for if your child’s ever in a bad spot and can’t speak freely. You hopefully will never need it, but it could come in handy. An example would be for them to ask, “How’s (grandma’s dog)?” or “What’s (neighbor’s name) up to lately?”
Do you have any other suggestions for a family who is sending their child abroad?