Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Helping Out vs. Slave For A Month?

We are having a Spanish exchange student come stay with us for the month of July.

He is 16. He has Celiac disease, which is how we came to be his host family (other than the fact that my mom and I hosted two exchange students when I was a kid and I always loved the idea of doing the same when the time and opportunity arose).

Anyways, the coordinator of the exchange program mentioned that we can set whatever rules and chores for our student that we see fit.

That's awesome, but my kids are only just starting to get into the whole chore scene and I have NO idea what is appropriate for a 16 year old kid. Especially one to whom we have no familial relationship. (Translation: I would work my 16-year-old WAY harder than I would yours.)

Mike and I were discussing it tonight at dinner and I decided to bring it to my lovely blog readers for some advice.

What do you think are appropriate "contributing to the family" chores for a 16-year-old exchange student? I would like to walk the line between getting M's help around here as part of our family and signing the poor kid up for a month of manual labor.

The things I was thinking were as follows:

- keep personal items tidy (this one is mostly because M will be staying in our playroom and if his things are left out, the kids will play with them)

- make bed in the morning

- either do laundry as needed or ensure clothes are downstairs for me to do laundry

Mike was thinking of outside chores like lawn mowing, wood cutting (with supervision, of course), and inside chores like dusting, vacuuming, dishes, etc. His theory is that M is 16 and too few things to do will result in abject boredom.

What say you?